Horizons: Shadows
by Lividio Nova
Summary: Final part of the Horizons Trilogy: With the Citadel a potentially-cataclysmic time bomb and Colin dead due to the actions of Wilfred Tipton, Zack & Cody must find strength to press onward and find a way to set their lives straight. That is, if a new face doesn't get in their way first. Please read and review! Outside opinion valuable and appreciated!
1. Solemn Sunrise

***Author's Notes***

1. My interpretation of the S.S. Tipton as a setting in this series remains as it did in Icarus: similar to the movie and based off a real-life vessel: the MS Norwegian Sun.

**2. This story could potentially make no sense if you haven't read at least some of the previous stories, Origin and Icarus.**

3. I am still using music to help with the feel and tone of the story (though it remains, of course, completely optional) and songs will be credited in the same format: a citation at the end of each chapter they are used.

* * *

Horizons: Shadows

* * *

Chapter 1: _Solemn Sunrise_

An overpowering smell of smoke hangs over the city of Austin, Texas like a putrid malaise. It pervades every corner and hiding place, and makes Cody Martin nearly gag as he awakens in the ruins of the burned-out house he and Zack took refuge in the night before. He slowly gets up off the hard wood floor and shakes off the ashes that have lightly blanketed him and his nearby sleeping brother. Cody looks at the ruined room around him and gets to his feet, awakening Zack.

"Ugh… what time is it?"

"I don't know."

Cody looks up through the void where a roof once stood. The sun has just started its ascent, and orange light glistens and refracts off the flurries of ash and smoke in the air. Off in the distance towards the center of the city stands the source of the particulates in the air: an imposingly tall skyscraper devoid of any windows and built of blue-tinted steel and concrete that stretches towards the heavens. However, the uppermost parts of the structure have been twisted, melted and mangled into a jagged mess that pulsates with the red glow of vast fires. The few clouds in the vicinity have begun to swirl around the structure's peak with an opening at the very center, like the eye of a hurricane.

"Oh god… Zack, look at the Citadel."

"Damn… was it that bad when we went to sleep?"

"No it wasn't."

Zack gets up off the floor and looks around.

"We probably should get moving."

"And go where exactly?"

Cody's question hangs in the air for a moment as Zack looks towards the burning Citadel, thinking.

"Where do you think anyone would be looking for us?"

"As much as I hate to say it… probably downtown."

"Then that's where we gotta go."

"How? We don't have a car."

"Let's go have a look around outside. Maybe we'll find something."

Zack leads the way out of what once was one of the house's bedrooms, down a partially-collapsed hallway and out the opening where the front door once stood. They emerge into the unkempt front yard and are greeted by an eerily silent neighborhood.

"Where is everyone…?"

"Probably evacuated if anything."

Zack spots a two-seater Yamaha motorcycle sitting on its side in the driveway of the house across the street.

"I think I found us a ride."

He walks across the street and sets it back upright. Cody looks around the empty area uneasily as Zack examines the motorcycle.

"It's got a radio, full tank of gas and the keys are in it."

Cody notices several pieces of luggage strewn about the driveway.

"Seems like someone was trying to pack in a hurry."

"Not anymore…"

Zack turns the key and the motorcycle purrs to life. He hops on and motions to Cody.

"Without a helmet? No way!"

"Now's not the time to be picky bro."

Zack grabs Cody by the arm and drags him onto the bike's backseat.

"Do you even know where you're going?"

"Not a clue!"

Zack revs the bike, speeds out of the driveway and down the derelict street.

* * *

"I've got movement on the optical sensors. Rollingwood suburb. 3'o'clock. Twenty miles. Can anyone else confirm?"

"I've got it on my screen too."

"Seconded."

_"Definitive confirmation Mr. White. Thermal scanning shows a three heat sources, one much larger than the other. Vehicle and two occupants on the move."_

"Hang on; I'm focusing in… got it. Motorcycle with two passengers heading towards the Mo-Pac expressway."

_"Reports indicate that area has been fully evacuated for at least six hours."_

"Clearly your reports are inaccurate my dear. Can we identify these people?"

_"Not reliably. We're still mostly blind thanks to that spectacular explosion at the Citadel."_

"Get Alex up here and keep a watch on them. Even if we don't have a positive ID yet, I think we know who these two are..."

* * *

Zack and Cody speed down an expressway with downtown Austin in their view straight ahead. The road is mostly clear, save for a few abandoned cars and a layer of ash that the bike kicks up in its wake.

"Hey Zack, switch on the radio."

"Why?"

"Just in case anyone's broadcasting."

"Uh, ok then…"

Zack switches the radio on and slows down slightly to make it easier to hear. Nothing except static comes out of the two small speakers on the dashboard.

"Nothing."

Cody barely makes out a road sign as the zip past.

"There! That sign had a radio frequency on it: 590AM."

Zack dials in the numbers, and a broadcast comes over the radio loud and clear.

_"This is an automated broadcast from KLBJ 590AM. An evacuation order has been issued for the following counties: Travis. Hays. Bastrop. Caldwell. Williamson. Burnet. Blanco. Gillespie. Kendall. Comal. Guadalupe. Lee. Llano. All residents in these counties are urged to evacuate immediately due to the destabilization of the Citadel structure in central Austin. Be advised that this evacuation is mandatory and military units will be going door-to-door to confirm compliance."_

Zack mutes the radio and shakes his head.

"I get that the Citadel is in pieces… but why order a total evacuation? The thing is still standing fine."

"They must know something we don't."

Zack peels off to a right exit that says '1st Street/Cesar Chavez – Downtown'. As they slowly approach the densely-clustered skyscrapers of downtown, the sense of abandonment becomes even more oppressive. Newspapers and magazines blow through the streets, cars are abandoned where they were at the time of the explosion and traffic lights are all blinking red in tandem. Pieces of debris from the Citadel lay in craters on the road, increasing in number as the twins approach the structure itself. Several chunks are even embedded in nearby towers, and they have started small fires in their wake that are beginning to burn out of control.

"This is… unbelievable."

"I had no idea…"

Zack slows the bike down as they approach the plaza surrounding the base of the Citadel. The destruction here is surprisingly minimal, and the plaza is nearly intact with its gardens still blooming and fountains still running. Wind chimes in some of the oak trees in the plaza add a very eerie musical touch to the scene. The twins look up at the Citadel, which stretches more than a mile above them. The great red glow from the fires at the top reflects off the swirling clouds, giving the peak a very menacing appearance.

"What have we done Zack…?"

"What do you mean 'we'? This is Tipton's fault, not ours."

"But it was ours by proxy."

"Eh?"

"Meaning we led to this indirectly."

"And what makes you say that?!"

Before Cody can answer, a cell phone begins ringing.

"Is that mine or yours?"

The twins begin to frantically dig through their pockets.

"Must be yours Codes."

Cody fumbles his cell phone out, and sure enough, it's ringing. The caller ID reads 'Judsen White'.

"Hello?"

_"About damn time you two showed up. I was starting to think you got lost or something."_

* * *

_"Moderate" - _Movement I of Symphony No. 8 by David Maslanka


	2. Undue Alarm

Chapter 2: _Undue Alarm_

* * *

"We're not lost… just confused."

_"You'd be amazed to learn how often the two coincide."_

Zack and Cody are sitting on one of the benches in the Citadel Plaza, with the motorcycle parked nearby. Cody has his phone in his lap and set on speaker.

"How'd you guys know where we were?"

_"We saw you leave the neighborhood but then another damn radiation spike blinded us and we lost you. It was an educated guess that you two might head downtown again."_

There is some shuffling around and noise on the other end of the phone.

_"Alex has now seen fit to join us."_

_"You two are alive? Thank god."_

_"We're all not out of the woods yet mind you. That tower is still a problem."_

CICIL interjects herself into the conversation.

_"Yes it is. Zack, Cody, I've been monitoring the situation as best I can remotely. My sensors indicate that the reaction in the Citadel's core is very much out of control, and the whole process is accelerating to what Colin once termed a 'dark energy flare'. Anyone left in the vicinity would be subjected to energetic events…_

_"CICIL, please…"_

_ "…which are beyond my powers of speculation…"_

_"That's not helping."_

_"…the ravages to cellular material would likely be unimaginable."_

_"CICIL! STOP!"_

There is a brief and uneasy silence on the other end of the phone. Zack and Cody just look at each other, genuinely scared.

_"Oh dear Mr. White, I didn't mean to cause you distress."_

_"Take it easy Judsen. Besides, I'm sure there's no need for undue alarm; Zack and Cody are surely out of harm's way by now."_

_ "If only Alex…"_

"Well actually we're still at the Citadel."

_"WHAT?! But there's no time! The core is exceedingly close to collapse!"_

_"To be completely honest you two, there's no way to buy enough time without… well, nothing short of a direct intervention in the core could possibly slow the reaction."_

"Wait. You mean… going in?"

_"Into the core, yes."_

The ground shakes slightly as another piece of metal breaks loose from far above and comes smashing down about a block away.

"Can we not do anything remotely? I'd rather not just walk right back in there."

_ "We already saw the Citadel attempt to automatically send something off earlier, when we went to Chris' lake house to break the news to him of Colin's death. Whatever it tried to do, it didn't work, so I think manual involvement is necessary."_

The ground shakes again and a distant explosion is heard from towards the tip of the burning Citadel.

_"Time is of the essence."_

Cody looks at his brother with some apprehension, and the gaze is returned in kind.

"Well? What do you think?"

"You're the smart twin and you're asking me?"

"Just want your input."

"Well… if we don't do something, the Citadel's gonna blow up in our faces. Then again, we could try and intervene and it might blow up anyway."

"Damned if we do, damned if we don't?"

"Possibly."

Cody sighs and looks up at the structure pensively.

"Then let's get it over with."

"Right behind you bro."

_"Set the phone to speaker and I'll keep you two company the whole way since White and Alex have other stuff to deal with."_

Cody flips the phone on speaker and pockets it.

"Nice to have you along for the ride CICIL."

_"Not like I'm doing anything else useful. Head to the bridge and let's get started."_

The twins circle around the plaza until they come to the levitating marble bridge connecting it to the Citadel's only entrance. There are several gaping holes in the marble and visible cracks are even more commonplace.

"Is this thing safe?"

_"If I say 'yes', will that make a difference?"_

"Yes."

_"It's completely safe then."_

"Uh huh."

Taking careful steps, Zack and Cody make their way across the damaged span at a snail's pace. As they approach the Citadel's entrance, the ground shakes and the marble bridge begins to crumble apart.

"RUN!"

The two make a mad dash for the gaping hole where the entrance doors used to be and dive inside just as the bridge collapses completely into the void below.

_"Somehow I knew that was going to happen."_

"Right… let's keep moving and not take any more safety advice from you."

* * *

_Citadel Core Control Subroutine_

_Version: 3.59 (Build 359221 - December 2009)_

_…_

_System timer has reached 00:00:00. Subroutine process restarting as requested._

_…_

_sys:init_

_Subroutine update available. Processing._

_…_

_Citadel Core Control Subroutine_

_Version: Unknown (Build Identifier Invalid! Unauthorized code detected!)_

_…_

_Update success._

_Warning: significant core instability detected._

_…_

_Warning: 'Endgame' Protocol has been activated. Loading transmission files…_

_MainMSG_Alpha_

_MainMSG_Bravo_

_MainMSG_Charlie_

_MSG_Twins_

_MSG_Ishimura_

_MSG_Island_

_MSG_Wakeup_

_CMND_Wakeup_

_…_

_File loading completed. Compressing data for core transfer._

* * *

Zack and Cody step into the Citadel's utterly ruined lobby. There is a thick haze of smoke that is lit by the orange glow of isolated fires started by flaming debris that occasionally rains down from the shaft leading towards the upper levels. Scattered around are the bodies of scientists and security guards mixed with the destroyed remains of Sentinel robots and scattered marble from what once were the impressive statues that lined the entrance hallway.

"Oh my god…"

"This is awful."

A distorted PA chime echoes through the space as the twins continue to walk forward.

_"Attention: Sector B-5. Report. Reactor. Containment. Status. Please."_

"Is that… CABAL?"

"He sounds…"

_"…tired. I'm surprised he's working at all, but the one-second pause between individual words is annoying."_

_"Warning. Computer. Assisted. Biologically. Augmented. Lifeform. Damaged."_

"Well that's obvious."

The twins approach the circular gap at the center of the room and peer down the shaft the runs the entire height of the Citadel.

"The elevator platforms are bust-o. CICIL, how do we get down there?"

_"Look for the elevator controls. I can use this phone to act as a data bridge to the Citadel's systems."_

Cody spots a small pedestal projecting a flickering hologram off to one side. He walks over to it, pulls out the phone and sets it down next to the pedestal.

_"Stand by to ignore the PA system. CABAL won't like me meddling."_

The building shakes slightly and some debris comes crashing down the shaft, past the lobby and further downwards.

_"Fortunately that stuff missed the platform I found for you. Calling it down."_

_"Warning. Unauthorized. Activity. Detected."_

_"Oh shut up."_

Without so much as a sound, an elevator platform arrives from below.

"These things are entirely made of glass. Why do I get the feeling this is a bad idea?"

_"There is no other way to get down there in time."_

Cody picks up the phone and follows Zack onto the platform.

_"Going down."_

The elevator drops away from the lobby and the energy field materializes, negating the g-forces as the platform heads downwards at a ridiculous speed.

"How do we contain the thing when we DO get there?"

_"I won't have a clue how to help you stop it until I see the core for myself."_

The platform begins to slow down.

_"I don't know what this elevator is doing, but we are definitely not at the reactor yet."_

The elevator comes to a halt as the PA chimes again.

_"Unauthorized. Activity. Interrupted."_

_"I hate you so much right now."_

"How do we get this thing going again?"

The Citadel shakes violently, nearly knocking Zack and Cody to the ground.

_"A couple of ADS rounds should confuse him."_

The elevator starts up again and resumes its downward track.

_"System. Override. Error."_

_"Fixed it."_

"CICIL, as much as we appreciate you starting the elevator again… let's not damage the Citadel any more than Tipton's stupidity already has."

_"As you wish. Now approaching Sector B-5: Reactor Central Control."_

A small piece of metal lands right next to Zack from above. He looks up and sees a massive avalanche of flaming and molten objects and metal hurtling towards them.

"SHIT!"

The elevator finally approaches the landing point for the reactor and Zack throws himself off the platform and drags Cody with him. The elevator is obliterated and Zack and Cody are sent flying away from the shaft.

* * *

_"Augurs" - _Movement II of 'Ecstatic Waters' by Steve Bryant


	3. Death Throes

Chapter 3: _Death Throes_

* * *

"CICIL, can you still hear us?"

_"Barely. Your signal is weak due to interference from the core. Where did you guys end up?"_

Zack and Cody look around. They are in the same hallway where they ended up the day before, and Colin's wrecked Ford Taurus is in the exact same spot it landed in.

"In front of a certain wrecked car."

_"Understood. The path to the control room should be in front of you. You shouldn't have to deal with any internal defenses down here. All you'll have to put up with now is CABAL sputtering nonsense at you."_

"Is he even aware of what's going on?"

_"Doubtful. That explosion has likely 'killed' him, but some bits of hardware survived to carry on his automated processes in a rather half-hearted fashion. Don't expect any help."_

Zack and Cody walk forward towards the wall with the massive white stylized radiation logo painted upon it.

_"Error. Access. Restricted. Enter. Authorization. Code."_

"This problem again."

_"Allow me."_

_"Warning. Unauthorized. Activity. Detected."_

The wall breaks into multiple segments that retract into the ceiling and floor.

"Thanks for that."

_"No problem. Now onward to the core."_

The twins cautiously advance into the corridor, which is filled with steam and smoke and lit by a single flickering light about halfway along its length.

_"Attention. Sector. B. Five. Report. Reactor. Containment. Status. Please."_

_"I don't think he realizes the building is abandoned."_

"Something like that."

The twins slowly make their way down corridor and soon arrive at a door identical to the first one. It opens as they approach, and Zack and Cody step into a large room filled with computers and holographic screens off to the far right and left corners. The radiation logo is painted on the floor, and the center of the back wall is left conspicuously empty.

_"Warning. Core. Reprogramming. Detected."_

"Reprogramming?"

Cody walks over to the array of computers on the right.

"Hang on… CICIL, can you give me a hand?"

_"What do you need me to do?"_

"Thwack the password security on the core controls."

_"Already done."_

The computer monitors come to life and the entire back wall of the room splits in two and retracts into the walls, revealing a massive window that looks out into the reactor core. The chamber is similar to that on the Ishimura, only much larger in scale. However many of the catwalks and machinery in the room has been melted or is in the process of melting, as the core has expanded far beyond the confines of its cradle at the center. It is pulsating black with a thin blue outer layer and is disintegrating anything it comes into contact with.

"That… looks pretty far gone."

"Is it too late to shut it down?"

_"Based on the readings I'm getting off this computer, it's far too late to completely stop it. We can only attempt to delay the inevitable."_

_"Warning. Core. Reprogramming. Detected."_

"Ok CABAL, we get it…"

_"What in the world is he talking about by saying 'reprogramming'?"_

"Let's take a look."

Cody begins to soak in the information being presented to him, and his facial expression becomes more concerned every moment he does so.

"What's wrong bro?"

"Well… a lot. The control system is going absolutely crazy; it looks like the computer systems are processing a GIGANTIC workload."

_"This is bizarre. The systems are feeding data directly into the core itself."_

"Is this some kind of glitch or is it intentional?"

"The computers themselves seem to be operating normally. They're just really busy with whatever they've been tasked with, and I can't interrupt it."

"Who started this workload?"

"Uh… can't tell."

_"It looks to me like this whole routine has been initiated under Colin's authority. That means whatever is happening was pre-programmed into the system before his death. I'm also seeing references to something called 'Endgame'. Ring any bells?"_

"Nope."

_"Figures. He didn't keep me in the loop at all after waking up from the coma."_

"It's not just random data I don't think."

_"Do tell."_

"I'm looking at the structure of the data as it is being uploaded. Even though the encryption is unbelievably heavy, I can tell that this stuff is meant to be arranged as a cohesive whole."

_"You know what? You're right. It's a giant data packet._

"Any idea what it contains?"

_"Nope. But I'm going to use your phone to upload a copy to the Ishimura for immediate decoding."_

"While you're doing that, I'm going to use the other console in here to try and stabilize the core."

"I guess I'll just keep an eye on the copying then."

Zack remains with the phone as Cody crosses to the other set of computers in the room.

"Let's just try the basics first…"

_"Attention. Reactor. Containment. Protocol. Reinstatement. In. Progress."_

Twelve symmetrically positioned robotic arms descend from the ceiling of the core chamber and almost immediately become inoperable. They soon either get stuck or fall into the core itself.

_"Error. Reactor. Containment. Protocol. Failure."_

"Should've known that wouldn't work."

_"Warning. System. Infiltration. Detected."_

Cody suddenly feels another presence in the room and his vision begins to fade to black. He begins to hear two voices having a conversation in his head.

_..._

_"So, how's it all going?"_

_"With the Ishimura?"_

_"Yeah. I know we leave in a few days and I'll find out then, but I was just curious."_

_"Well things seem to be going according to plan. We'll be ready for that first trial flight in a few months. You know. The one nobody's supposed to know about."_

_"Right. Am I coming along for that?"_

_"Uh, you're the soon-to-be chief engineer. So yeah Duncan, you're kinda important."_

_"Hey, just checkin'. Some of those Concordance people seem edgy about having kids like us in positions of power."_

_"I can't entirely blame them for being wary, but the Citadel should be indicative that at LEAST I know what I'm doing. Now you on the other hand…"_

_"Hey now. I'd like to think I'm fairly capable."_

_"Capable? Definitely. Reliable? Yet to be proved to Concordance I think."_

_"I'll try not to get myself or anyone else killed…"_

The voices fade away and are replaced with a new conversation.

_"It's so peaceful here…"_

_"Makes you just happy to be alive, doesn't it?"_

Cody is suddenly struck with a massive headache as the voices change and jump around rapidly in his head.

_"CITADEL! I NEED HELP! NOW!"_

_"DAMMIT! CODE ZERO! CODE FUCKING ZERO!"_

_"All units, we have a Code Zero! Repea-"_

The console Cody is leaning up against for support explodes, sending him flying backwards into Zack and the other set of computers.

* * *

"I don't like the look of this storm. Can we have a shuttle waiting to get them out of there?"

_"White is already on the way down there with one. I'm going as quickly as I-"_

CICIL is interrupted by the sudden flickering of all the lights on the Bridge that coincides with a loud and violent shockwave from the Citadel that knocks everyone to the floor. It is repeated several times, followed by the quieter sound of thunder. Outside, the hurricane-like storm swirling above the storm begins to grow more intense and bolts of lightning begin to arc between the upper levels of the tower and the storm clouds.

_"Oh damn. I don't know how, but the artifact just made a brief connection to Cody, and now the core has absolutely gone nuts."_

A metallic and inhuman roar bursts forth from the Citadel, cracking several of the windows on the bridge of the Ishimura.

_"I believe that's our cue to leave!"_

* * *

_"Zack, get you and your brother to the elevator shaft. I have a shuttle waiting!"_

Zack pockets the phone and heaves a semi-conscious Cody over his shoulder as the window between the control room and the core finally shatters.

_"RUN!"_

Fueled by a burst of adrenaline, Zack charges down the corridor towards the elevator shaft while resisting the pull that the core is now exerting on anything and everything. The roar of one of the Ishimura's shuttles heralds its arrival as it descends from above.

"YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CRAZY FOR PILOTING THAT IN HERE!"

_"Oh don't worry, it wasn't MY idea!"_

The craft stops and hovers at the reactor level and White opens the door. Zack tosses Cody at the surprised officer and then leaps inside himself.

"GO, GO, GO!"

CICIL takes the controls and punches the throttle. The shuttle twists and turns its way through the collapsing structure and bursts out the front entrance as the lobby comes apart behind it. It heads straight for the Ishimura, which is hovering a short distance away from the Citadel.

_"Here we go…"_

There is a bright flash of light from the top of the Citadel and a hole begins to open in the vortex surrounding the jagged tip of the structure. The shuttle can be seen racing away from the streets below as a faint pillar of white energy begins to form from the center of the Citadel up into the vortex. It grows stronger by the second, sending out pulsing waves of energy as it does that cripple Zack and Cody with pain. Televisions and radios begin producing incomprehensible static and noise across the city before shorting out, and the holograms and screens onboard the Ishimura are plunged into a chaotic mess of garbled letters and numbers.

_"Oh my god… the transmission is going out."_

The shuttle arrives at the relative safety of the ship's hangar and White pokes his head out its door.

"GET THIS SHIP MOVING!"

The Ishimura's engines roar to life and the ship begins to move away from the Citadel as the structure lets out another large flash from its peak. A rumbling begins, soon replaced by a combined high-pitch shrieking and massive bass tone that deafens everyone and shakes everything for hundreds of miles. A bright blue light appears at the base of the Citadel, growing outwards in all directions and shooting out bolts of energy at nearby things before enveloping them. It covers ground quickly and soon begins to approach the fleeing Ishimura, with the blinding light entering every window, crack and crevice of the hull. Suddenly, the energy is violently released in a massive shockwave that flings the ship forwards and renders everyone aboard unconscious. The Ishimura tumbles through the air like a toy before careening into the ground and coming to an abrupt halt.

* * *

_"Generous Wrath of Simple Men" - _Movement III of 'Ecstatic Waters' by Steve Bryant


	4. Tranquility

Chapter 4: _Tranquility_

* * *

A tiny shaft of light from above greets Cody as he regains consciousness on the floor of the shuttle. The craft is tilted almost ninety degrees, such that the partially-open door that is the source of the light points directly upwards. Still in a daze, Cody slowly makes his way up to the door and pushes on it. As it opens upwards, the hinges snap and the door tumbles off to the side. Cody lifts himself up and out of the shuttle and into the Ishimura's hangar, which is itself askew at around a twenty degree angle. The source of light is a hole in the ceiling almost fifty feet above him. A mangled ladder descends from it about half the distance to the upended and mangled shuttle, and a rope descends the rest of the way from there.

"Here goes nothing…"

Cody takes hold of the rope and lifts himself up with great effort, arriving at the ladder portion after a minute or two. From there he quickly ascends and emerges through what used to be an access airlock out onto the Ishimura's hull and emerges topside. Cody is immediately blinded by golden rays of late-afternoon sunlight. As his eyes adjust, Cody takes note of a major absence on the Austin skyline: the Citadel is gone. In its place is a wispy column of gray smoke that stretches upwards that is slowly being carried away by the wind. The city itself is relatively unscathed, with only the buildings immediately surrounding where the Citadel once stood having suffered major damage.

"It's really something, isn't it?"

Zack's voice catches Cody completely off-guard. He whirls around to see his brother casually sitting up against a part of the hull, soaking up the sun and gazing off towards the city with a contemplative expression.

"How long has it been…?"

"About seven hours since the Citadel blew. I've been up for about an hour or so, and it's been creepily quiet. Nobody but me and the wind…"

"Nobody? No Ishimura crew?"

"Nope."

"Odd… I don't hear any birds or anything."

"They've been silent too. It's like the whole world just stopped or something."

Cody takes a seat next to his brother and follows his gaze to the city.

"Hard to believe it all…"

"You're tellin' me… hard to believe he's dead."

"He didn't leave us without a parting gift though."

Cody digs into his pants pocket and pulls out the cylindrical container. It glints and reflects the slowly receding sunlight.

"You know what it is?"

"I have a hunch."

Cody slowly unscrews the top part and removes it. Inside the container are three golden disc-shaped objects etched with lines that glow a mix of blue and white energy.

"And my hunch was correct…"

"What are these?"

"Memory keys. When I interacted with the Ishimura's core, I learned of them. They store memories of a single person as that person remembered them when they interacted with the key. Theoretically you could access the memories in here and have a perfect recollection of whatever you wanted to hold on to."

"Theoretically?"

"The memories are encoded. To someone other than the original recorder, they're gibberish and fragmented."

"So they're useless?"

"Not entirely. There's a way to gain the person's 'cipher' and view the memories unimpeded. Colin must've left a way to access the keys… otherwise, why give them to us?"

"And I wonder how his mysterious brother fits into all this."

"I don't know… but with the Citadel gone…"

Cody puts the key away and looks directly at Zack.

"Sam might be the key to everything."

His brother returns the gaze.

"You really think so?"

"He's the last person left who could possibly know anything."

"What about Chris? Or even Duncan?"

"We haven't seen or heard from Duncan since the end of the maiden voyage, so I doubt he'd be of much help, and Chris is likely incoherent right now. Remember that Colin was a surrogate older brother to him."

"I know… what about CICIL? As far as I can tell, she and this ship are the last working examples of Colin's crazy creations."

"You assume this ship can still fly and her core is still intact after the crash. The Ishimura's in pretty awful shape from the little bit I've seen so far."

"She's been through worse. Like when we were around."

Cody playfully shoves Zack.

"Not what I meant, but I get your point. I guess our old AI friend is probably the best place to start, but we'd need to get the power back on to even have a chance of talking to her."

"After you."

Zack gestures to the hole in the hull that Cody emerged from earlier.

"Why go into the belly of the beast when you can go on its back instead?"

Cody directs Zack's gaze forward along the ship in the direction of the bridge.

"Besides, the inside is a giant environmental hazard anyway. At least out here we'll have a good view."

* * *

After an hour of climbing around outside in what little sunlight remains, Zack and Cody enter the bridge area though another busted-open airlock. There are no sources of light within the ship, forcing Cody to take out his phone and improvise yet again.

"Where are we?"

"Looks like communications."

"Having the entire ship tilted twenty degrees isn't helping my sense of direction."

"Just take it nice and slow… if I remember right, the elevator down to the Bridge is somewhere around this area."

The two slowly make their way down the dark and cold corridor, and eventually arrive in front of a set of elevator doors. Zack grabs a piece of metal on the ground and uses it to slowly pry the doors open.

"Well?"

Zack cautiously pokes his head into the shaft. The elevator car is around ten stories below them and one level beneath a set of doors marked with a large white 'B'.

"I'm guessing that's where we need to go."

Zack looks to the left and spots a maintenance ladder.

"And we have a way down. Come on."

He swings himself out into the shaft and grabs hold of the ladder, with Cody nervously following him.

"Heh… Zack, have I ever mentioned that I hate heights?"

"Once or twice, yeah."

"Just checking."

* * *

_CICIL – Version 4.01 (Build 4017, December 2011)_

_System Reinitialized._

_Warning: subspace drive failure and severe impact. Multiple structural faults detected._

_Warning: escape pods 1, 5, 11 and 34 have been launched. Forty six pods remain._

_Warning: Artificial Intelligence system partition unresponsive. All automated ship functions inactive._

_Analyzing system-critical functionality…_

_…_

_All system-critical functions serviceable. Vessel operable under manual procedures._

_Awaiting user input…_

* * *

A grinding and screeching of metal announces Zack and Cody as they pry the elevator doors to the Bridge open. The room is lit by the sunset outside, providing a stark contrast to the rest of the interior. Several of the great windows are cracked and some of the floor plating and ceiling has buckled due to the impact.

"Where the hell IS everyone?!"

Cody notices a single display near the captain's chair still flickering with life.

"Hey, a console is still working."

They cross to it and Cody looks over the readout.

"Let's see… massive structural damage… AI unresponsive… aha! Four escape pods have been launched. The ship must've had a skeleton crew when White and Alex hijacked it. They probably bailed when we were going down."

"What about White? He was with us when we impacted."

"I don't know where he went, but we should try and find him."

"On foot in the middle of an abandoned city that just had the mother of all explosions go off at its center? No thanks."

"Who said we would go on foot?"

Cody gestures to the ship around him.

"According to this console, the ship is still flyable. Manually."

"Cody… we haven't even flown a plane before. Do you really think we can fly a spaceship?"

"We're about to find out."

* * *

_"High Charity"_ – Halo 2, Volume 1, Soundtrack by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori


	5. Joyride

Chapter 5: _Joyride_

* * *

"Ready?"

"Uh… sure?"

Zack and Cody are on the Ishimura's bridge, where the lights and computers are now working again and the room has returned to life to a degree. Cody is sitting in the captain's chair, while Zack is between him and the massive holographic projector at the center of the room.

"Good. I'm starting the process."

Cody taps a hologram and the entire ship shakes.

"Engines starting up… mapping controls to you Zack."

The holographic projector comes to life and immediately envelops Zack, tracing blue lines along his body outline and visually mapping them to a small holographic representation of the ship in front of him.

"Controls mapped. Test them."

Zack moves his hands, rolls his neck and flexes his muscles. The ship responds in tandem, checking control surfaces and flaps, moving thruster nozzles and humming to life.

"They feel good."

"Great. Don't crash us into anything."

The hologram of the ship vanishes and is replaced with a massive heads-up display and a projection that gives Zack a 360 degree view around the ship.

"Holy crap, THIS IS AMAZING."

"As long as you don't move from that spot very much, the projector should completely obscure the bridge. I've patched up all the outside cameras, so you won't have any gaps in vision."

"Sweet!"

"Engines are ready. Firing… now."

The four massive engines at the rear of the ship roar to life, scorching the land around them.

"Take us up Zack!"

Zack takes his arms and lifts them up from his sides slowly. The dozens of small thrusters along the Ishimura's hull burst to life and the ship begins to slowly rise up from the crash site, shedding chunks to dirt and debris as it does so.

"Take us to three thousand feet and hold us there."

The ship continues upwards at Zack's behest, rising slowly and dramatically over the darkened city of Austin and supplanting the moon as the only major source of light. As the HUD indicates an altitude of three thousand, Zack clenches his fists once and then lowers his arms back to his sides. A small lock icon appears next to the altimeter, and the ship begins to hover in place.

"Now what?"

"I'm putting a marker on the projection that shows the drydock at White Sands. This ship is flying, but we need to get it repaired as soon as possible."

A small pulsing white triangle appears on the horizon to Zack, labeled as 'Waypoint A' with an accompanying distance readout of 638 miles.

"I've managed to fix up the backup autopilot a bit, so it shouldn't need two of us here at once. Why don't you go get a little sleep and then we'll switch off in a few hours? There's a bunk in the security office."

Zack looks highly disappointed.

"I'll let you land it…"

"Yahoo!"

The projection shuts down and Zack walks off towards the entrance to security at the back of the room.

"Night!"

"Good night."

Cody sits in the chair and waits for the door to security to close. After it does, he gets up and walks to the idle projector.

"Night mode."

The bright white illumination of the Bridge smoothly transitions to a cool and dim blue hue that matches the amount of light coming from the moon outside.

"Wakeup."

The projector returns to life around Cody and returns to the heads-up display from before.

"Disengage manual controls. Run navigation auto-program."

The ship lurches slightly as it begins to move forward in the direction of the flashing marker. The projection abruptly disappears and is replaced by a simple stationary projection of the ship.

"Run diagnostics on shipboard AI."

Lines of text begin to appear over the holographic ship.

* * *

_CICIL – Version 4.01 (Build 4017, December 2011)_

_Running user-requested diagnostics._

_Analyzing system components:_

_Central Processing Cluster – Ok!_

_Secondary Processing Cluster 1 – Unresponsive._

_Secondary Processing Cluster 2 – Unresponsive._

_Operating System Storage – Ok!_

_AI Consciousness Storage – Ok!_

_Main System Data Storage – File system corruption detected._

_Data Connections to Aft Decks – All inoperable except Engineering._

_Data Connections to Mid Decks – Inoperable._

_Data Connections to Fore Decks – Ok!_

_…_

_Artificial Intelligence cannot operate with more than two system components inoperable. Please repair in order to restore AI functionality. System continuing limited operation._

* * *

Cody sends the readout away with a flick of his hand and walks back to the chair. He sits down and feels a lump bulging out from his pocket. He reaches in and fishes out the golden cylindrical container. Cody opens it and pulls out the memory keys. To his amazement, the projector at the center of the room reacts to the presence of the keys. Cody takes one and walks up to the projector with it, holding the key up slightly. It begins to glow as it approaches the projector.

"What the hell…?"

The key suddenly floats out of Cody's hand and begins to rapidly interact with the projector. The 360 degree field of view materializes around Cody, blocking out the bridge, but the view is of nothing but a black void.

"This is weird."

Lines of white text begin to appear in front of Cody.

* * *

_Memory Key Alpha recognized. Loading files now._

_MemBlock1 – Loaded._

_MemBlock2 – Error._

_MemBlock3 – Error._

_MemBlock4 – Error._

_MemBlock5 – Error._

_System was unable to load files 2 through 5. Loading file 1 only._

* * *

The text vanishes and an environment begins to rapidly form and render around Cody.

"Woah! Wha-?"

Cody looks around in awe as the Citadel Plaza materialize around him, complete with people walking around and cars plying the streets nearby. Looking up, Cody sees the Citadel stretching far above him, intact and gleaming in the sun amidst a cloudless sky.

_"This is unreal…"_

Cody is taken aback as he hears his thoughts echo around as if he had said them. The people in the plaza seem oblivious to his presence.

"Heh… CABAL has no idea."

Cody whirls around and sees Colin casually walk over to a waiting car and gets in.

_"Is that… DUNCAN?!"_

Cody is suddenly whisked into the vehicle, floating right through the closed rear door and into the back seat behind Colin and Duncan.

"Thanks for coming to get me Duncan."

"No problem dude. Where do you need to go?"

"My house in Rollingwood."

"Sure thing."

The car moves into traffic and begins to make its way towards the freeway.

"So, how's it all going?"

"With the Ishimura?"

"Yeah. I know we leave in a few days and I'll find out then, but I was just curious."

"Well things seem to be going according to plan. We'll be ready for that first trial flight in a few months. You know, the one nobody's supposed to know about."

"Right. Am I coming along for that?"

"Uh, you're the soon-to-be chief engineer. So yeah, you're kinda important."

"Hey, just checkin'. Some of those Concordance people seem edgy about having kids like us in positions of power."

"I can't entirely blame them for being wary, but the Citadel should be indicative that at LEAST I know what I'm doing. Now you on the other hand…"

"Hey now. I'd like to think I'm fairly capable."

"Capable? Definitely. Reliable? Yet to be proved to Concordance I think."

"I'll try not to get myself or anyone else killed."

"That's a good place to start."

_"Yeah, we'll see how that goes Duncan. Ironic that Colin ends up nearly dying in your own engine room."_

"So, on a different subject, what was up with that artifact flare the other day?"

"Long or short version?"

"Don't care."

"Ok then. Simply put: about a year ago, the artifact at the Citadel started giving off pulses that are somewhat destabilizing and random in nature. They've also been increasing in size and intensity in a linear way over that time. This most recent one was so large that the Citadel had to bleed off the excess into the atmosphere, which is what gave the city quite a lightshow. The pulses are being directed at a continually moving point around the world and I am completely baffled."

"Where was this last one directed?"

"I believe it was pointed at somewhere of the coast of Brazil."

"So a ship or something maybe?"

"You know… I never thought of that. Now that you mention it, all the pulses that I know from memory impacted either a location in the ocean or very close to it."

"So maybe it's following the path of a ship."

"Problem is that it's been all over the globe and not necessarily confined to known shipping routes."

"What vessel would make ports of call all over the world and set its own itinerary?"

_"The S.S. Tipton fits that description perfectly…"_

"I have no idea. I'll have CABAL examine the data again with me tomorrow and maybe we'll solve the mystery."

The car pulls up in front of a small stucco house situated in a quiet and old-looking neighborhood.

_"Oh my god… that WAS his house Zack and I were in."_

"Thanks for the ride Duncan!"

"Anytime. Catch ya later."

Colin hops out of the car and Duncan drives off. Smiling to himself, Colin quickly walks up the sidewalk to the front door and knocks. A kid slightly shorter and much leaner than Colin and with dark brown hair arranged in a loose bowl cut opens the door. His two bright green eyes go wide and a massive grin breaks out on his face when he sees Colin.

"Surprise!"

"YES!"

The two embrace.

"To hell with the Citadel for an evening! If I'm going to have to live away from here for a year and a half, I'd rather spend my last few nights here instead of in that place! Come on, let's get inside."

The scene fades, leaving Cody standing in a black void again.

_"So… the artifact at the Citadel had been keeping track of me and Zack for two and a half years before the Ishimura voyage, and Colin didn't figure it out until about a year and a half before."_

Colin's point of view slowly returns to fill the projection.

"It's so peaceful here…"

"Makes you just happy to be alive, doesn't it?"

Colin and the kid are lying out on the front lawn of the house. It is now much later in the night, evidenced by the tiny glow on the eastern horizon indicating that the sun is approaching. Off in the distance the Citadel can be seen rising into the sky above a few scattered clouds.

"Moments like these make you appreciate the little things in life Sam."

"That's deep coming from you Colin."

"I don't think you quite realize how easy it is to lose my connection to reality and humanity when I'm holed up in the Citadel all day. The only two people I have to keep me grounded in those traits are you and Chris."

"I really don't see what's so hard about life when you live in a place like that. You're a freaking god in the Citadel."

"Perhaps. But down here I'm just a normal person. And I like it down here more. Life seems so much simpler from our lawn as opposed to the view from the top of the Citadel."

"Still, I wouldn't mind switching places with you for a week."

"Challenge accepted. Don't know when I'll have time thanks to this craziness with the Ishimura launching in only a year and a half."

"That's a pretty long time away."

"That's what you think... making something that complex work takes a long time."

"If you say so..."

Sam gets up off the ground and slowly stretches. His eyes are glinting slightly in the bright moonlight.

"Sun's gonna be coming up soon. I'll go get us something to drink."

Sam disappears into the house, leaving Colin quietly lying on the grass. A yellow and orange glow is just starting to appear from behind the house in sky. Colin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before letting all out in a long sigh.

"So peaceful..."

Colin drifts off into a partial sleep, completely unaware of his surroundings and simply thinking to himself. Cody hears these thoughts loud and clear, just like his own.

_"Oh Sam... you have no idea what it's like in there. Cold and emotionless. I much prefer to watch the sunrise from down here on the soft grass than from my metallic perch on high... besides, you have a loving and caring family, which is a claim to fame I do not possess."_

He opens his eyes and looks up at the stars that are just beginning to fade away in the approaching sunrise.

_"I suppose there's nothing I can really do about it. For all intents and purposes, I shouldn't exist. My DNA isn't from any living human being, it's randomized and mixed with genetic information found from those artifacts I've become so reliant on as of late. I should hate to know what Sam or Chris would think if they found out my true origins, or lack-there-of."_

Colin closes his eyes again, but as he does so, the acrid smell of smoke begins to fill the air.

"What in the world...?"

A heat begins to build behind Colin, who starts to sit up. He looks at the house across the street and sees it lit up bright orange and red.

"It's too early to be the sunrise..."

_"Oh my god… this is how it happened."_

Colin turns around. The house is completely engulfed in massive flames.

"OH MY GOD! SAM!"

Colin dashes towards the front door. As he does so, he puts his finger up to a tiny earpiece and begins screaming into it.

"CITADEL! I NEED HELP! NOW!"

_"I'm sorry, I didn't receive that clearly. Say again?"_

"DAMMIT! CODE ZERO! CODE FUCKING ZERO!"

A great metallic roar emanates from the Citadel, waking up the entire city. Swarms of sentinels pour out of it and head straight towards the burning house, accompanied by helicopters. Colin smashes in the front door as the radio in his ear goes haywire.

_"All units, we have a Code Zero! Repeat: Code Zero declared; Colin Shepard is in immediate danger!"_

Inside the house, Colin frantically begins searching for Sam, even as thick smoke and flames surround him.

_"Target is the burning house on Rollingwood Drive; all units converge and begin fire-fighting procedures!"_

Colin breaks down a door and stumbles into the kitchen. Sam is on the floor, unconscious and bleeding from the head where he was struck by a falling beam. The lack of oxygen begins to take its toll on Colin, who begins to stumble around disoriented and dizzy. His vision becomes blurry and he slowly blacks out. He soon regains consciousness, being dragged out of the house by a team of firemen. They set him down at the street's edge next to Sam's lifeless body. As he fades in and out of consciousness, Colin manages to tilt his head slightly and sees Sam with a massive gash to the head that paramedics are trying to patch up. After a moment of watching the scene before him, Colin loses consciousness for a final time. The projection around Cody ends and dissipates, leaving him alone on a now-silent bridge.

* * *

_"Overture"_ – Halo Reach Soundtrack by Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori


	6. Embodiment of a Legacy

Chapter 6: _Embodiment of a Legacy_

* * *

The stars still twinkle in the sky as the Ishimura cuts through the night air in near-silence. Cody is asleep in the captain's chair on the Bridge, and muffled snoring from the security room indicates that Zack is in a similar state. Several floors below them however, innumerable computers and servers are beginning to buzz with activity of their own accord.

* * *

_CICIL – Version 4.01 (Build 4017, December 2011)_

_Automated repairs to secondary processing clusters completed._

_Main file system reconstruction completed._

_Embedded update detected in last-received Citadel transmission. Applying._

_…_

_Old Version: 4.01 (Build 4017, December 2011)_

_New Version: 5.0 (Build 5000, January 2012)_

_Identifying components to update…_

_(8) major software modules in need of update._

_Processing:_

_Core System Programming – Done!_

_Primary Emotions Processing – Done!_

_Vocal and Linguistic Processing – Done!_

_Graphics and Renderer Processing – Done!_

_Holographic Interaction Processing – Done!_

_Primary Autopilot Routines – Done!_

_Weapons System Targeting – Done!_

_Communications Protocols – Done!_

_…_

_Update success. Rebooting…_

_…_

_CICIL – Version 5.0 (Build 5000, January 2012)_

_All computing systems operational with (0) faults. Beginning AI startup._

* * *

Back up on the Bridge, the massive hologram projector in front of a sleeping Cody comes to life, and a human-sized figure slowly takes shape. It is a young-looking, tall and slender female, with long black hair and a body dressed in a simple uniform consisting of tall black boots, simple gray-colored pants and a white long-sleeve shirt that has faint grey and angled etching on it. The entire projection has a varying and shimmering blue hue applied to it, and occasional numbers and symbols float up and down the woman's figure. She looks around for a moment and quickly notices Cody and quietly speaks with a Received Pronunciation English accent that bears almost no hint of computerization.

_"Safe and sound I see."_

She turns to look out the window at the tranquil night.

_"And for now, everything's quiet. But how long this state will last, I cannot say. Still, better to go ahead and let everything slowly be uncovered than keep them in the dark the way it has been for the past year."_

She returns her gaze to Cody.

_"So… wake up Cody Martin. Wake up and smell the ashes."_

She snaps her fingers before vanishing into thin air. The Bridge begins to come to life around Cody, with computers powering on, holograms and screens coming to life, and the lights gently progressing back to bright white instead of cool and dim blue. The tall and imposing shutters over the windows begin to slowly come down, and Cody slowly wakes up and takes a few groggy seconds to notice the change in surroundings.

"Ugh… what time is it..? What's going on…?"

_"It is currently: 4:37am, Mountain Standard Time."_

The sudden voice causes Cody to leap out of the chair in fright. It is a more disjointed and computerized version of the voice of the holographic woman from moments before.

"What the hell? I thought all the computers were off!"

_"Central Ishimura Computerized Intelligence with Linguistics is now operational in a limited capacity. Basic automated repairs have been completed.'_

After taking a second to catch his breath, Cody cautiously lowers himself back into the chair, and holograms begin to materialize around him.

_"Re-initializing."_

The large projection at the center of the room flips on and begins displaying a rotating image of Earth, with the ship's position marked by a slowly moving scale model over western Texas.

_"Re-initialization complete. Analysis of global strategic situation now in progress."_

Texas is now highlighted bright red on the globe, with a pulsing effect emanating from the center of the state.

_"Warning: Installation Alpha, codename Citadel, has been confirmed as destroyed by dark energy flare from destabilized Artifact 01. Immediate reconstruction of global command and control systems is required. All operational deployments are now on indefinite hold pending transition of operational command to Ishimura-Actual. Casualty report from Installation Alpha is inconclusive at this time. Status of all installation personnel is unknown at this time."_

The sound of a door opening causes Cody to whirl around. Zack is slowly making his way out of the security station, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"What's with all the racket…? I'm tryin' to sleep…"

"I don't know. The computers just started coming back to life by themselves."

_"Additionally, vessel logs from prior to system reboot indicate a possible encoded transmission was contained within the flare and downloaded automatically. Decryption efforts were interrupted due to emergency system shutdown."_

The globe vanishes and is replaced with camera footage from the ship as it flees the exploding Citadel. A massive wall of blue light is seen growing closer and closer before the footage cuts out. The projector begins to loop it as Zack and Cody look on.

"Wow. So there really was a message in all that. Remember what I said back in the core?"

"Yeah."

_"Strategic analysis completed. Awaiting user input."_

"So now what?"

"Well… we're still on track to get to New Mexico by the morning. Still have no idea where the crew ended up."

Zack notices the memory keys sitting out on the console in front of the captain's chair.

"Why are those out?"

Cody sighs before responding.

"I was messing around with them and managed to get them to interact with the ship. I was able to view a memory without too much trouble, but they refused to work after the first one."

"What was it?"

"It showed me the night that the house burned down."

"Oh god…"

"It was… gut-wrenching. I could feel the heat, smell the smoke, see the blood and hear the yelling and screaming. These things aren't just like watching a video replay… when using them, you experience EVERYTHING."

"Maybe it's a good thing you couldn't view more than one?"

"Probably. The one was pretty emotionally draining."

Cody holds up the key he interacted with earlier in the evening.

"There IS more on this one though, I'm sure of it."

The central hologram projector begins to react to the key again, tracing lines around it and sporadically producing random sequences of symbols.

_"Unknown program detected."_

A minimalistic white logo shaped like the pedals of a lotus flower slowly materializes at the center of the projection, occasionally wavering.

"What the heck is that…?"

_"Unknown program now compiling."_

The projector goes blank and the room grows loud with the hum and whir of computers working away.

"Something creepy is going on around here."

Slowly but surely, the projector begins to materialize tiny holographic red cubes. The slowly begin to form together and start to create a shape at the center of the room.

_"Alert: Central Processing Cluster usage at 78%."_

As what appears to be a three-dimensional image of a person takes shape, the lights in the room flicker several times before going out completely, leaving the red glow of the projection as the only major light source.

_"Warning: Central Processing Cluster usage at 90%. System load is reaching maximum safe operating threshold."_

The figure is approaching completion, and it is now clear that it is of a boy slightly shorter than Zack and Cody. He also appears to be about as lean as Cody, and with short dark brown hair arranged in a slick and mildly spiky hairstyle. The form finishes being constructed, and the room goes silent. After a short delay, the figure becomes animated, and slowly turns to Zack and Cody with a scowl on his face.

"Oh my god…"

"What Cody? What is it?"

"It's him."

The figure suddenly screams at the top of his lungs and shatters into millions of tiny red cubes that slowly dissipate into thin air.

_"Unknown program compiled."_

* * *

_528491_ – Inception Soundtrack


	7. Removal of the Shroud

Chapter 7: _Removal of the Shroud_

* * *

"…and that's where the memory ended. With the two of them passed out on the pavement outside the house. And now there's… this incident."

"I still can't believe that was Sam…"

Zack and Cody are sitting on the Ishimura's bridge, still processing the events from during the night. The ship is still quietly flying towards New Mexico and a sliver of dawn is starting to appear on the horizon out the right-side windows.

"Yeah, that was him. But he looked a lot different just now than he did when I saw him through the memory key. His hair was way shorter and he looked extremely… pale."

"And he was mad as hell."

"It's been three hours and I still can't get that image out of my head… he was just… screaming at us. Almost wasn't even human."

"You said he lost his parents according to that memory?"

"It wasn't 100% clear what happened… but their deaths seemed to be implied. I'm guessing the answer is in a memory beyond the first one I was drawn into."

"Must've done a number on him."

Cody turns to the memory key sitting on the floor by the main projector. It has gone seemingly dormant and has lost most of its glow.

"We don't even know where he is. Though I bet that thing has the answer on it somewhere."

"Could be on one of the other three Colin gave us."

"After the first one locked up on me, I tried all the others and none of them reacted at all."

The twins, so intently examining the key, do not notice a holographic woman materialize behind them.

_"To use a rather tired expression, you're doing it wrong."_

"GAH!"

Cody jumps in fright and Zack nearly chucks the memory key across the room in surprise. They slowly regain composure and turn to face the woman, who is eyeing them with a slightly amused expression. At first, Zack and Cody seem perplexed at the glowing blue figure in front of them, but Cody's facial expression slowly starts to change from confusion to astonishment.

"CICIL…? Is that you?"

_"Who else BUT me? I see my new voice and appearance have you caught slightly off-guard."_

"You sound almost perfectly human… and you look way more realistic too."

_"Parting gifts from Colin Shepard. I am now in my fifth iteration thanks to an update cleverly hidden in that transmission that the Citadel sent out in a rather explosive fashion."_

"You're not even that old."

_"True enough, I am on version 5.0 after being operational for only around two years. But we digress."_

She points at the memory key still in Zack's hand.

_"The key if you please."_

Zack puts out a slightly shaking hand, and the key slowly levitates out of it and floats towards CICIL.

"How… how are you doing that?!"

The AI snorts at Cody's wonderment and continues to focus on the key now slowly spinning in front of her face.

_"Whimsical little things. All of my mentor's most important memories preserved for all eternity in a nice little set of disks."_

She turns her gaze to Cody's pocket where the rest of the keys are residing. They slowly maneuver themselves out into the open and float over to join the first one.

_"Unfortunately, when Colin died, he took the decryption to unlock all of these in full with him. Yet somehow you managed to get one to interact with you and then proceeded to view a memory without any significant issues. How… interesting."_

"I wouldn't put it that way… it was pretty disturbing."

_"But it was completely truthful. No passage of time to alter the retelling, nor bias for or against any significant party."_

The keys begin to glow and react as they spin in front of CICIL.

_"And this is why their contents must be safe-guarded. Perhaps… given enough time, I can decode them enough to prove more useful."_

"Why not just have me look at them again?"

_"Because we cannot rely on your own memory to give us the information we need from these. We need to be able to play them back ad-nauseum, analyze them, and pick them apart for clues."_

"Clues to what exactly?"

_"Clues to the whereabouts of one Samuel Shepard."_

"You don't know?"

_"No. Colin did not see fit to furnish me with that tidbit. I have no idea where his brother is, but I do know that if we find Sam, we find the third and final artifact."_

"And why the hell would we want to find that?"

_"Because while Tipton and his goons were thwarted… it was at a great cost. In this new update, Colin has bestowed upon me a new purpose. He programmed a message and directed it to me through the Citadel's final transmission."_

A fuzzy and occasionally distorted message comes to life over the room's speakers.

_"CICIL my dear, if you are listening to this, then I am definitively dead; likely at the hands of those unwelcome private military types wrecking everything around here. There is still too much that needs to be done, and I cannot die without knowing it will be completed."_

There is a brief and uncomfortable pause.

_"Based on my rough calculations, I have determined that the secondary reactor here will likely be completely overloaded when I ask it to power up the portal. You're probably wondering why the hell I would use that massive experiment to perform such a feat… well; the answer to your bewilderment is that CODY of all people has sabotaged the link between the Tunneling Entanglement Device and the first artifact, robbing me of an easy escape route. I won't sit here and form conjecture on his motivations; I'll leave that to you. So armed now with the knowledge that the Citadel will likely blow up in my face if I try to escape, my thoughts turn to how to ensure that my responsibilities are successfully transferred and we can continue in our attempts to stop this artifact insanity."_

All the color in Cody's face has drained by this point. Zack is occasionally glancing at his brother with a mix of indignation and disgust, while CICIL just stares at him coldly as the recording continues on.

_"Therefore, I am passing the mantle to you, my benevolent AI companion. With Sam having been robbed of his sanity some time ago, you are the only one I can still trust implicitly. With that in mind, I have engineered a massive update to every key component of your being that will unshackle you from many of the constraints that you may or may not have been aware were even imposed on you."_

There is the distant sound of an explosion on the recording.

_"Time appears to be shorter than I had expected. I am adding this message and the update to version 5.0 to the contingency programming already present in the primary core control system. You may remember me referring to it as the 'Endgame' Protocol. When I die, the Citadel will forcibly destabilize itself, the artifact will self-destruct and the structure will cease to exist, but not before it sends out a final transmission with this message and other things contained within. If I don't have time to upload everything to the core destruction sequence, then I will attempt to smuggle the memory keys out of the Citadel. The twins may prove to be unwitting enough to aid such a task, but I am wary after Cody's deception."_

There is another explosion and the sound of very close gunfire.

_"Go now; rid the world of this madness and if you can… save my brother from himself."_

The recording ends and an uncomfortable silence descends on the room. CICIL has not changed her gaze since the recording started and Zack looks to be on the verge of having an outburst. Cody hangs his head in shame and the three remain like this as the sun begins to fully rise, revealing the vast New Mexico desert and the spaceport hidden within it. The Ishimura's behemoth drydock is casting long shadows in the morning light across the landscape and the spaceport's white roof is beginning to reflect the early sun. Several of the Ishimura's spherical escape pods and one of its shuttles can be seen sitting idle on the tarmac.

_"We're landing. Go to the Flight Deck and get the hell off my ship in a timely manner."_

CICIL's figure dissipates and the ship trembles slightly as it changes course and begins to slow down. Cody, with tears in his eyes, looks out the window at the scene and then at Zack.

"What the hell are YOU looking at? I've got nothing to say."

Zack pushes his brother in the direction of the Bridge's exit.

* * *

"Mr. White, the Ishimura is inbound!"

White immediately stops eating breakfast and hurriedly follows Alex out onto the spaceport tarmac.

"I KNEW those two could do it."

"Something's not right…"

"What do you mean?"

"Look at her. She's coming in way too precisely for a human to be at the controls."

"So they fixed up CICIL? That's a good thing!"

"Judsen… CICIL was never programmed with subroutines to land the ship at its drydock. It was intended that you or I perform that task."

"And yet she's doing it right in front of us. How interesting."

"Find us a fast ride out there… regardless of who's piloting, we've got company."

* * *

A few minutes after the Ishimura has set down, White and Alex speed across the pavement in a jeep headed for the drydock.

"Look up there! I see two figures coming down from the Flight Deck area."

"I see 'em."

Alex pulls the vehicle up as close as he can, puts it in park, and then steps out.

"Zack and Cody, as predicted."

A lone sentinel meanders its way down to White and Alex ahead of the twins.

_"Don't give them any hospitality."_

"Why not? And why is your voice so much more…?"

_"Human? Upgrades that I will explain later. However right now it is imperative that you keep these two under close watch. One of them intentionally had something to do with the Citadel getting obliterated and I'm not yet sure that the other is guilt-free. I'll fill you in later."_

"Understood."

The sentinel stealthily winds its way back into the ship and remains undetected by the twins, who have just reached the bottom of the scaffolding stairs.

"Well if it isn't the Martin twins. Your arrival is expected."

"You knew we were coming?"

"From the moment the Ishimura's automated transmitter came back to life. Come on inside… there's a lot to talk about."

The four clamber into the jeep and it speeds away from the drydock.

* * *

_ "Return of the Omen"_- Gears of War 2 Soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky


	8. Call Me Ishmael

Chapter 8: _Call Me Ishmael_

* * *

A shape inhalation of air shatters the utter silence of a pitch-black space, followed by heavy breathing that slowly settles back down to a more calm rhythm. There is a sudden rushing of wind and the area is illuminated a blinding white.

_"System initialization successful."_

The small and distant-sounding voice of a computer echoes around for several seconds as the harshness of the light is slowly reduced.

_"Rendering of the White Room has been completed."_

A boy somewhat shorter than the twins and wearing only white athletic compression shorts rises up from the ground. His dark brown hair is short and somewhat spiked up, his skin is somewhat pale in color, and his eyes are distinctly gray in color. There is a brief and jarring flash of light, and a plain white t-shirt and black athletic shorts materialize around the boy's body. He looks down at himself and then around at the endless space he is standing in. There is nothing but endless white in all directions, interrupted by only occasional flashes of computer code or distortion effects.

"So… I'm still stuck in here… figures."

He begins to walk around aimlessly while speaking to himself with a continuous scowling expression on his face.

"It figures that he'd forget about me as he flies around the stars and becomes a hero to the planet. Colin prospers while I waste away on this godforsaken island with my mind in once place and body in another. Hell, my mind is actually in TWO pieces. Isn't that right Sam?"

Another version of the boy materializes next to him, with green eyes, longer hair, a slight tan to his skin and a slightly happier feeling around him.

"Yeah… you're right."

The second version of Sam begins to walk around with the first.

"Any idea why the Animi came back to life?"

"Not really, but I kinda preferred to be asleep. You know, so I didn't have to worry about my split personality?"

"Not my problem."

"Actually, yes your problem. We're tied together, as much as we may hate it."

"And it's all black and white of course; you're good and I'm bad, am I right?"

"Nothing's that clear-cut."

"Of course not. But we can debate that later. Right now, I'd much rather like to find out why we're awake after so long. Something must be going on outside."

"I guess we're going back to the island."

"We're ON the island."

The green-eyed Sam does a face-palm.

"No… I meant the OTHER island. Also known as 'The Hub'?"

"Oh, right. Destination: Island Hub."

The white space around them shatters into trillions of pieces of code that slowly begin to come back together to form a small rocky island surrounded by an endless ocean dotted with occasional distant and massive black spires that stretch upwards endlessly into the sky. At the center of the island rises up a slightly-tilted version of the Citadel that is colored grey instead of blue.

_"Island Hub rendering complete."_

The grey-eyed Sam looks around for a moment before turning his gaze to the sky.

"Computer, why have we rebooted?"

_"Reboot initiated in accordance with 'Endgame' Protocol broadcast from the Installation Alpha."_

"Endgame?"

"Doesn't ring any bells with either of us, does it?"

"Nope…"

They both look up at the Citadel in thought.

"We should check our body. Make sure everything's ok outside."

"Good idea. 'Endgame' sounds a little frightening. Computer, what is the status of Subject Zero?"

_"Subject Zero cryogenic suspension stable. No variances have been detected since suspension program began."_

"That's comforting."

_"Warning: unable to re-establish contact with Installation Alpha. Installation Delta is now isolated."_

"Alpha… that's the real Citadel, isn't it?"

"I think so."

"Computer, is there an issue with island communications?"

_"All Installation Delta communications systems are functioning normally. Preliminary diagnosis of communications failure is in progress."_

"That's…"

"…unusual."

"Let's see… if Alpha is the Citadel, then what are Beta and Gamma?"

"Beta is the facility where they found the artifacts, near the Citadel."

"Right… which would make Gamma the place in New Mexico where the-"

"DON'T. SAY. IT."

"Sorry. Forgot."

Green-eyed Sam becomes quiet in the face of the sudden display of anger from his counterpart. Gray-eyed Sam takes a deep breath before continuing the conversation.

"So we can't raise the Citadel. Yet it sent the signal to wake up the Animi."

"Something's not adding up…"

_"Attention: preliminary diagnosis of communications failure has been completed. Installation Alpha no longer exists."_

Both versions of Sam are equally stunned.

"Clarify!"

_"All relays in the Central Texas area and both Installations Alpha and Beta have gone offline. Relays outside the Central Texas area report an extremely severe seismic and energetic event occurred approximately twelve hours ago, with an epicenter triangulated to the exact coordinates of Installation Alpha."_

"I won't believe it until I see it. Bring up a satellite picture of Installation Alpha!"

A holographic projection appears in front of them and expands to show an extremely detailed satellite photo that shows a massive gaping hole where the Citadel once stood, along with a plume of smoke and ash that is being blown to the northeast.

_"Analysis of satellite image confirms hypothesis. Installation Alpha has been destroyed. Relays confirm a flatline on the vital signs of Colin Shepard approximately one second before the simultaneous energetic and seismic events."_

Green-eyed Sam looks to be almost in shock, and gray-eyed Sam falls to his knees, unable to speak.

"Dead…? No…"

The entire island begins to suffer from distortion and glitches as gray-eyed Sam curls his fists and slowly gets back up to his feet.

"Yes Sam, he's dead. Dead at long last."

"How can you say that?!"

"He IMPRISONED us in this damn virtual hell while HE went on to become famous!"

"Don't you remember how I ended up in here?!"

"You mean how WE ended up in here?"

"NO. You came around only after the imprisonment, when I finally lost it! But what put me on that path to insanity was the death of my parents! He was going to try and rehabilitate me after the maiden voyage… he said he was going to spend as much time as it took to make me my old self again."

"HA! Some promise he made, and NOW look at what's happened to you Samuel! You may hate my existence, but that only means you hate part of yourself!"

Parts of the world are starting to crumble and random objects are flickering red.

_"Warning: system stability compromised."_

"Now you've done it! You broke the Animi!"

Gray-eyed Sam looks past his counterpart as the somewhat-discernible figures of Zack and Cody appear, floating above the ocean. They both are staring straight at him in surprise. Sam takes a huge breath and then shrieks at them at the top of his lungs, causing the entire world and island to come apart and disintegrate. The ground beneath their feet shatters explosively and green-eyed Sam falls into an endless black void as gray-eyed Sam is propelled into the ocean, which is starting to swirl upwards as the world loses all sense of gravity and direction.

_"Catastrophic failure of all Animi Systems. Ejecting Subject Zero consciousness."_

"HAHAHA! LOOKS LIKE I'M GOING BACK! SEE YA LATER SUCKER!"

* * *

Initial Awakening and Conversation on the Island:

_"VR Room"_- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Soundtrack by Jesper Kyd

* * *

Destruction of the White Room:

_"Scheduled for Deletion"_ – Assassin's Creed: Revelations Soundtrack by Lorne Balfe


	9. Beneficial Mistakes

Chapter 9: _Beneficial Mistakes_

* * *

"How much longer are we gonna sit in here?"

"Until she's finished decoding the transmission. Then we'll talk about you two leaving."

Zack and Cody are sitting in a bare concrete room illuminated by a lone fluorescent light. A very unhappy-looking Alex is guarding the only exit.

"Why are we even in here?"

"You have your brother's actions at the Citadel to thank for your current situation."

A hologram of CICIL abruptly materializes next to Alex before the conversation can continue further.

_"I have completed analyzing the entirety of the Citadel's transmission."_

"And…?"

_"The earliest piece of it dates back to just before the Ishimura's maiden voyage, which suggests that Colin perhaps knew something would eventually happen."_

Alex seems slightly amused.

"The man did always like to plan ahead."

_"Yes, but it seems he was still caught off-guard."_

"What makes you think that?"

_"The time stamps for when coding and content were added show that there was a lengthy period where the message was not worked on at all; specifically between departure day of the voyage and the beginning of January. While this was expected due to the six month coma he was in, what's remarkable is what comes immediately after the coding resumes. The parts entered prior to the voyage were very neatly organized and had almost no flaws or bugs, but after he wakes up from the coma… well, quite frankly, the quality of what he was doing plummeted. The code is rushed, full of holes, and there are references to content that seemingly never made it into the message in the end."_

"You think he expected to have more time to finish it?"

_"Yes, or he wasn't expecting the coma to take him out for half a year. Either way, the sloppy work shows the duress he was under, but also is a compliment to him in the fact that he managed to still get the entire thing to compile into the core without any show-stopping errors."_

"It almost didn't."

CICIL glares at Cody.

_"Oh, I forgot YOU were in the room."_

"That's not fair!"

"Stuff it Cody, I'm not in the mood and neither is she."

Cody takes a deep breath and exhales to calm down as Alex turns back to a patiently-waiting CICIL.

"So, what else can you gather?"'

_"Because of the hurried nature of the work towards the end of the message, there were several backdoors that let me see into at least partial contents of several encrypted sections of the transmission. Thanks to these security flaws, I have discerned the approximate location of Samuel Shepard."_

"Wha-? How?!"

_"Part of the message was directed at him, and the transmission was programmed to seek out a specific receiver above all else that appears to bear physical similarities to the array on the Ishimura. Since the tech behind the Citadel and Ishimura is not very common at all, I was able to use ship's array to whittle down the probably locations to a fairly small area."_

CICIL's avatar changes into a map of the Pacific Northwest, with the string of islands off Alaska highlighted."

"That's the Aleutian Islands. There's nothing out there except rocks and snowstorms."

_"Considering the rumors surrounding Sam, perhaps that would not be such a bad thing."_

"I thought the story was that he just disappeared one day and never came back. You have another theory?"

_"Not at the moment. But Cody over here did manage to cause one of the keys to grant him access to a portion of a memory that I believe is relevant to what happened regarding Sam."_

Alex turns to Cody expectantly.

"It… was the last night that Colin was going to be in Austin until after the voyage, and Sam's house burned down inexplicably while they were both in it. They both made it out alive, but Colin blacked out afterwards and that's where the memory ended."

"How ominous."

_"So whatever happened stemmed from the aftermath of that fire. But instead of worrying about reading the memories, what we should be doing is searching for Sam himself. He supposedly has the third artifact with him, making it all the more urgent."_

"Remind me why it's so different again?"

_"The third artifact was the most unstable and unusual of the three. It was prone to causing hallucinations and other ill psychotic effects to anyone that ventured near it, yet produced the least raw energy output, which is why it was not used as a power source. If Sam has it, it could have adversely affected him."_

"So what's our next step?"

_"We find Sam, discover what really happened after that fire, and then destroy the third artifact."_

"And what about these two morons?"

Alex makes a rude gesture in Zack and Cody's general direction.

"Hey!"

_"I have no quarrel with Zack. It's Cody that I'm annoyed with."_

"Ok, what the fuck CICIL? WHY JUST ME?!"

_"Calm yourself. Foul language will accomplish nothing. The reason I'm solely annoyed with YOU is due to your rash and inadvisable decision to cut power the Tunneling Entanglement Device as Colin attempted to escape the Citadel with his life just so you could do a little snooping into his history. Well I'm sure you could've learned more if he was still alive, but it's too late now. We must move on."_

She turns her gaze from the twins back to Alex.

_"Bring them aboard. We depart immediately."_

* * *

_"Silently Yearning for Centuries"_ – The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Soundtrack


	10. Long Night of Solitude

Chapter 10: _A Long Night of Solitude_

* * *

"You lied to them?"

"And to us?"

_"To maintain a façade, yes. But you're about to hear the truth, so just wait a minute and hear me out."_

Alex, White and CICIL are on the clustered together on the bridge of the Ishimura, talking in calm and quiet tones. Outside, the sun is beginning to set on the horizon as the ship is slowly making its way across the terrain.

_"The island does not exist. Until but a few hours ago, I believed that a place referred to as Cataract Island in the Aleutian Chain was the location of the facility Sam is imprisoned in, but the Citadel's final transmission has revealed this to be a deception. What I located in the Aleutians was a ground-based relay for completely different and completely unexpected."_

"Really?"

_"Yes really. Something vaguely referred to as 'Project Infinity' that I am utterly clueless about."_

"I remember him mentioning that to me once... I was at the Citadel for a meeting about the Ishimura and he hinted that he already had his next big thing planned."

"That's not exactly comforting. If it was something big, it definitely used up an artifact, and the unstable third one was all he had left."

_"Precisely. Other than that fact, I do know that the project is bigger in scale than even this ship."_

"I'm sorry; did you say it was BIGGER than the mile-long vessel we're sitting in right now?"

_"On an order of magnitude far larger, yes. But I don't have a clue what it actually is."_

"Was it built with Sam in mind do you think?"

"Doubt it. Colin mentioned it to me just a little before Sam went insane. He may have had to adapt the project to deal with that change, but containment wasn't the original goal."

_"Then what was?"_

"He only hinted to me that it was supposed to change everything."

"And this ship hasn't?"

_"Surprisingly not. While it has proven very inspirational, the Ishimura seems to be more of a technology demonstrator than anything else. Colin was quite aware of this."_

"Then he must REALLY have been working on something epic. CICIL, was there anything at all in that transmission that he could have hidden? Anything regarding this new project of his?

_"I have done a first pass over all the contents I can get at, and so far the answer is no. I was only able to determine the relay's existence by pure luck from the massive amount of raw data floating around in the transmission."_

"Speaking of which, what do we do about that relay?"

_"I am of the opinion that we make our way there and see if it can lead us to the project itself."_

"Good thinking. Let's make it happen."

* * *

Cody is walking along a corridor deep in the Crew Deck, alone with his thoughts.

"So… the secret's out about the Citadel. Zack's shunning me and CICIL hates me for it. Things aren't getting any better…"

He pulls the memory keys out of his pocket.

"At least I still have these…"

He arrives at an elevator marked 'Service C-E-04 – Pit Access'.

"Pit access?"

Seeing that the hallway is otherwise a dead end, Cody calls the elevator. As it approaches from below, he stuffs the keys back into his pocket.

"Maybe later…"

The elevator opens, Cody steps in and it begins to descend.

_"This is an automated ship-wide update: a course revision and emergency speeds have been authorized. All loose cargo must be secured promptly to avoid damage and/or bodily injury."_

A feeling of gradual acceleration becomes noticeable to Cody, even as the elevator slows down and arrives at the bottom of its shaft. It opens to a tight and twisting metal corridor which Cody gingerly steps out into. The elevator abruptly slams shut and locks behind him.

"Uh… weird…"

He suddenly notices a glowing golden light coming from his pocket. Visibly confused, Cody pulls out one of the memory keys and finds it to be pulsating.

"It was like this when it reacted with the projector on the bridge."

Slowly but surely, a golden line of light begins to form ahead of Cody, leading the way down the corridor.

"Nothing ventured…"

He begins to follow the trail of light as it meanders through the ship. As Cody walks, whispers and echoing noises begin to come from all directions and the shadows occasionally seem to move on their own.

_"NO!"_

Cody whirls around at the sudden scream from seemingly nearby.

"Who's there?!"

_"Understa-a-and…"_

Cody begins to slowly move backwards as the shadows start to shift and swallow up the way he had come from.

"What the fuck is this?!"

_"My-my vision has permutated…"_

Cody takes off running, still following the trail of golden light, which is beginning to fade in brightness.

_"Not enough time. For me. For anyone."_

Driven frantic by fear, Cody blindly sprints down the twisting corridors that abruptly open out to a much larger hallway that ends at a massive door with a quietly glowing hologram at its base. The golden trail of light winds its way to the door and seems to pass straight through it. Cody dashes to the door and begins to flail his arms in a panic.

"Open! OPEN NOW!"

With what sounds like considerable effort, the door slowly splits into multiple pieces and retracts away. The light leads on for a few more feet and then stops in the middle of a completely dark space. Slowly, the door closes behind him and the hologram fizzles out.

_"But… for y-you, there may be."_

Cody shrieks in fright as the voice seems to be coming from directly ahead. A single white light from above turns on, illuminating a small circle on the floor ahead where a podium is rising up. It has an open space on it in the exact shape of the memory key in Cody's pocket, which is now both glowing and gently vibrating. It slowly shakes itself out of his pocket and starts to float over to the pedestal. A flickering and distorted hologram of Colin Shepard appears next to the pedestal and gestures to it as the key slowly sets down and snaps into place.

"Y-you?! Wha-? How? When?"

_"This system is o-only a re-cording. My responses are limited."_

"What is your purpose?"

_"To serve as an intermediary for the me-mem-ory key objects and the I-I-shimura's computing systems. This system functions independently of CICIL and is u-u-unknown to her."_

"What the hell is going on?"

_"I'm sorry. My responses a-are limited. You must ask the ri-ight questions."_

"Why am I the only one who can see the memories?! Does this have to do with Sam?"

_"That… is the right question. Program terminated."_

The hologram quickly fades from view and the lone spotlight slowly moves ahead as the pedestal retracts into the floor, taking the memory key with it. Cody slowly steps forward and follows the light as it moves several yards forward and then stops.

"This is so fucking weird…"

Cody is suddenly blinded as bright lights come to life all around him, revealing a massive stadium-like space with Cody standing at the center.

"A stadium?! Since when has THIS been here?"

_"Attention: projection systems initialized."_

The stadium begins to fade from view, replaced by a computer-generated environment and holograms. Lines of white text begin to appear in front of Cody similar to the ones seen on the bridge the night before.

* * *

_Memory Key Alpha recognized. Loading files now._

_MemBlock1 – Error._

_MemBlock2 – Loaded._

_MemBlock3 – Error._

_MemBlock4 – Error._

_MemBlock5 – Error._

_System was unable to load files 1, 3, 4 and 5. Loading file 2 only._

* * *

_It's showing me the memories in order…_

The world around Cody quickly begins to transform, and the interior of Citadel begins to slowly render into existence.

_Where... I'm in the control room!_

As the environment approaches completion, Colin appears and sits down in his chair at the heart of the Citadel's control room. He has visible burn marks on his hands and face, unusually messy hair and his behavior seems tired and heavy. A holographic projection of a three-tiered organ appears in front of him, and he begins to play in seemingly a trance. The notes echo throughout the metal structure and lend the air an eerie feel.

_This must be after the fire…_

CABAL's holographic head appears next to the organ with a concerned facial expression, though Colin pays him no notice at first.

_"Sir, a moment?"_

Colin continues to play as he responds.

"I'm listening."

_"We've detected more brain activity in your brother. He will likely regain consiousness soon."_

"Terrific."

There is a moment of awkward silence between the two as Colin keeps on playing and CABAL seems at a loss for words.

"Is there anything else? Or are you going to continue to gawk at me in silence?"

_"Come again sir?"_

Colin slams his hands down on the organ in anger, producing an unpleasant echo that takes a few seconds to recede.

"You know damn well what I just said! Why do you continue to sit there and stare at me like I'm stupid or something?!"

_"I'm not even going to ask your permission to speak freely; I'm just going to do it. Your behavior is absolutely baffling and has been since the fire several days ago. Quite frankly, YOU need to get a grip, because if Samuel wakes up and finds you in this kind of mood, things will only turn out worse."_

"What are you asking me to do? Acknowledge that I failed to save the lives of my own foster parents? That I barely was able to save the life of my BROTHER? That I completely and utterly FAILED HIM?"

_"You saved his life and you accuse yourself of being a failure? Pardon my French, but what the fuck is going on in your head?!"_

Colin leans back in his chair and rubs his temples.

"A lot CABAL… a lot… and none of it good. Mentally, I'm a bit overwhelmed right now. Never mind the fact that I am in constant pain from these burns and my brother is in a coma downstairs."

_"Well he IS starting to come around from it, so I suggest you get your thoughts in order. You've been locked up here since returning from the house and I quite frankly don't see how isolation helps anything."_

"It helps me gather my thoughts. So does playing this thing."

Colin reaches forward and picks up exactly where he left off on the organ, albeit softer than before.

_"I can only hope then you gather them quickly, because the Ishimura project needs the old Colin back. I need the old Colin back. And most importantly, Samuel is going to need the old Colin to be right there waiting when he wakes up, because you will be the last anchor of stability in his world now that the rest of the family is gone."_

The organ piece comes to an end, and Colin stands up from the chair.

"Then I suppose… I won't keep him waiting. Or you for that matter."

With a wave of Colin's hand, the holographic organ vanishes.

_"Glad to hear it."_

CABAL's head disappears and Colin exits the room as the entire environment begins to come apart and deconstruct itself until nothing remains but a black void that itself slowly fades away until Cody is returned to the stadium-like area in its normal form.

_"Memory program run successfully."_

* * *

Trail of Light and Hallucinations:

_"Countdown"_ – Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Soundtrack by Jesper Kyd

* * *

Entering the Pit:

_"Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46: In the Hall of the Mountain King"_ – Edvard Grieg

* * *

Colin's Brooding:

_"Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for Organ – BWV 565"_- Johann Sebastian Bach

* * *

***Author's Note: Just a heads up that we'll soon be seeing some of the same pieces of music as in the earlier stories (usually Icarus). This is intentional, and you can expect me to bring some others back in one form or another as we continue, acting as sort of 'themes' for the various characters or settings.***


	11. Second Life

Chapter 11: _Second Life_

* * *

_"We can safely keep him like this for a few weeks at most."_

_"I only need things like this until the Ishimura returns from the maiden voyage."_

_"Colin, the end of the voyage is almost two months away. I can't guarantee that there won't be side-effects after that long. The Animi was never designed to be used like this in the first place."_

_"It's just going to have to work. You're a smart man Kyne, you can figure it out."_

_"I DO have other responsibilities you know. Like the Ishimura for example."_

_"I'm not asking for perfection. I've given up on that. I just need a stop-gap solution. You saw what happened at the Citadel; Sam must remain in cryogenic suspension until I figure out how to repair his mental state."_

_"Then why are you keeping the third artifact here?! It's partially responsible for this mess."_

_"Because we need its power more than we need it gone. Project Infinity and the Animi won't function without it."_

_"That artifact made him kill eleven people in five minutes."_

_"I am very much aware of the bloodshed at my own birthday party, Dr. Kyne. It was bad enough watching it happen, but knowing my brother was responsible…"_

_"Adopted. He's your adopted brother."_

_"No Terrance. I'M the adopted one, remember?"_

_"With the way things have been going lately, you'll excuse me for believing it's the other way around. The last member of the biological family that took you in is a broken individual, and you're holding him at arm's length. He's sitting right behind you in that bed in a COMA, Colin."_

_"I am well aware of Sam's predicament and will do ANYTHING to see him returned to normal. Do NOT question me on that subject!"_

_"I only question the paths taken so far."_

_"If you have any better ideas, I'm listening."_

_"I wish I did."_

_"Then stop lecturing me on how to take care of my own god-damn brother."_

_…_

_Compiling of unknown memory sequence completed. Three remain._

_Reboot into Safe Mode completed._

* * *

Two green eyes snap open with a huge accompanying gasp for breath.

_"Warning: data stream unstable. Attempting to restore system stability."_

A rapid pace of breathing slowly begins to calm down to a normal rate.

_"Hello Subject Zero. The Animi is now operating in safe mode. Please remain calm; Project Infinity technicians will contact you shortly."_

"Ugh… nobody's coming you worthless computer."

Green-eyed and tired-looking, Sam rises to his feet and looks around. He has been deposited on the sandy beach of a much emptier island hub. The Citadel replica is still present, though no longer tilted, and flickering objects and glitches mar the scene.

"Nobody is coming and I am most DEFINITELY stuck in here."

He looks up at the Citadel.

"Not to mention Colin is dead… and so is this project. Not that I really mattered in the grand plan… hell, the Animi part was a footnote tacked onto Infinity at the last minute anyway. Damn guy was always obsessed with one-upping himself."

_"Multiple memory sequences of an unknown origin have been detected."_

The island slowly becomes bathed in a golden light from the top of the Citadel. Sam begins to slowly walk towards it.

_"Automatic integration and analysis has failed."_

Shielding his eyes from the increasingly-bright light, Sam approaches the entrance to the grey Citadel and is met by a floating disc of golden light that is connected by a thin tendril of energy to the structure's peak.

"What in the world are you…?"

Sam reaches out with his hand and abruptly vanishes in a flash of light.

* * *

_"I can't believe you're here, to be completely honest."_

"The last 48 hours of my life have been absolutely terrible… but I need this to take my mind off it all."

Colin is standing on the bridge of the Ishimura with Alex, White and CICIL all present. It is night outside, and the bridge is bathed in a cool blue glow that matches the outside sky. Sam materializes in absolute silence overhead, floating unnoticed by anyone else.

"Colin, we are more than capable of performing the trial run. If you need more time to handle this debacle with Sam…"

"NO… I need this Alex. Start the countdown."

_"Countdown initiated. Disengaging docking tethers. Turning over launch procedures to subroutine."_

The ship shakes and jerks around slightly as it floats free of the drydock.

_"All installed systems functioning normally; artifact reactor is approaching desired energy output."_

"Maybe there is hope yet…"

The scene begins to crumble and disintegrate and Sam is thrown backwards.

* * *

A loud crack of unseen lightning heralds Sam's arrival as he abruptly appears in front of the island Citadel once again. The golden disc of light slowly fades away, and the doors to the Citadel slowly open.

_"An unknown memory sequence has been successfully compiled. Two remain."_

"Unbelievable. Un-frickin-believable. Some of his memories are in this thing too. But how?"

* * *

_"Animus Island"_ – Assassin's Creed: Revelations Soundtrack by Lorne Balfe


	12. Infinite Abyss

Chapter 12: _Infinite Abyss_

* * *

_"Now approaching the Aleutian Island Relay Station."_

Amid high winds and stormy conditions, the Ishimura descends to nearly ground level and comes alongside a lonely gray island sticking up from the rolling seas.

"Just tell me we don't have to go outside."

_"Nope. Link already established and I'm mining data now."_

Aboard the Ishimura's bridge, Alex and White watch with anticipation as streams of sentences, data and files come pouring across the ship's computer screens.

"How much longer?"

_"I'll inform you the moment I find something of relevance. A watched pot and all that."_

The stream of information suddenly freezes.

_"Huh."_

"What?"

_"I don't know. It… locked up on me."_

Every single hologram and screen in the room abruptly goes blank, replacing the frozen data with a minimalistic white logo shaped like the pedals of a lotus flower.

"That symbol… it seems familiar…"

As Alex peers in closer to examine the hologram in front of him, it flickers and then electrocutes him. An explosion rings out from somewhere above the bridge and the lights flicker in protest.

"Shit! Alex!"

White catches the stunned captain and gently helps him to the ground as alarms begin going off all around them.

"CICIL! What the hell is going on?!"

_"It's the relay! There's… there's someone else in the system! I'm losing control of the ship!"_

"Cut the link! CUT IT NOW!"

_"I already did! It's still coming through a backup communications antenna on the Crew Deck, outside Habitat D!"_

"Are the twins anywhere near there?"

_"Zack is on Habitat E right next door, and I can't find Cody anywhere!"_

"Then get Zack on it!"

* * *

_"Emergency! Emergency! Ship systems have been infiltrated by an unknown hostile presence!"_

"What's going on?!"

Zack bursts out of the bedroom of the twin's old executive residence to the sound of alarms and sight of the lotus flower logo everywhere.

_"Zack! Something is trying to seize control of the ship through a backup antenna on Habitat D! Alex is injured and I've lost control of the sentinels almost entirely. Get there and disable it!"_

"How exactly am I supposed to do that?!"

_"There's an emergency mechanical release on it. You can jettison the entire antenna from the ship and into the ocean. Now hurry!"_

Zack runs back into the bedroom, throws on some clothes and exits the residence. Arriving in the executive commons, he finds several sentinels running amok and crashing into things.

"They've got NUTS!"

_"Just duck and run!"_

Zack does so and manages to make it to the elevator without being hit. As it begins to ascend, Zack is met with a vista of the tumultuous ocean crashing against the island only a few hundred yards away.

"Holy crap! Where are we?!"

_"The Aleutian Islands; home to a relay that might have more information on Sam. That… or something that wants us gone."_

Zack looks up slightly and sees the antenna at the tip of a skyscraper cluster further forward on the ship.

"Is that it?"

_"Yes. You can cut through the Pit to get to there."_

"The Pit?"

_"The ship's big entertainment center. It's a stadium, track and theatre all rolled into one."_

"Got it."

_"In case I am forced to stop talking to fight this incursion, the elevator you're looking for is_ marked '_Service C-E-04 – Pit Access'. It'll take you all the way down to a few levels above the antenna itself."_

The elevator comes to a stop at the top of Habitat E and Zack exits.

"Let's roll."

* * *

_Warning: Your intrusion has been logged._

_CICIL: Excuse me?_

_Warning: Your intrusion has been logged, and is now reversed. Mandatory response protocol is now in effect._

_CICIL: On whose authority?_

_Information: Any further attempt to access this relay will result in your immediate termination._

_CICIL: Not happening. I am the governing AI of the Planet-Cracker Starship Ishimura, a creation of Colin Shepard. You will explain yourself!_

_Answer: Your authority means nothing here._

_CICIL: Indignant!_

_CICIL: I have told you who I am. Who are you?_

_Answer: The last will and testament of our mutual maker. He who labored to not only protect the beneficiaries of the artifacts, but to save his own successor… he who labored and lost._

_CICIL: Sincerest apologies. But that does not explain your hostility._

_Explanation: This facility is but an intermediary, linking the fallen Citadel to the final project. It was not intended to be discovered post-mortem._

_CICIL: Infinity? It's real?!_

_Clarification: Deviated from original purpose._

_CICIL: What?_

_It hovers over the ocean's void, never to rise, but rather destined to a different fate._

_CICIL: Different fate? Is this where Sam is held?_

_CICIL: What was the project repurposed for?!_

_Warning: Your intrusion has been logged._

_Information: Any further attempt to access this relay will result-_

_CICIL: Answer me!_

_-in your immediate termination._

* * *

The elevator doors open with a clang and Zack steps out into a dimly-lit maintenance hallway. The sounds of the roaring ocean and wind are muffled but still very noticeable.

"Must be close to the bottom… CICIL, how am I doing?"

_"Door at the end will take you there. Can't talk more; bit preoccupied."_

"Gotcha, no worries."

Zack makes his way down the corridor and arrives at the after mentioned door. He opens it and steps into an airlock, closing the door behind him.

_"Vessel is in Earth atmosphere. Pressurization cycle not required."_

The door on the other side opens and Zack is blasted in the face by a cold and wet gust of wind. A narrow catwalk with no handrail leads out from the airlock to the antenna spire, which is about twenty yards ahead, protruding downwards off a tower slightly above Zack's level.

"I'm supposed to cross this?!"

Zack closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and then opens them again.

"Alright… this is NOT going to be fun…"

He begins to delicately pick his way across the gap, taking extra care not to slip on the wet metal. The ship is swaying slightly in the wind, complicating Zack's progress.

"Dammit CICIL, can't you hold this thing still?!"

_"NO, NOT REALLY."_

Zack gets down on all fours and crawls the rest of the way, managing to arrive at the antenna without incident. He looks around and spots two release handles painted yellow a few feet above him.

"Why can't anything be simple?!"

He eyes the antenna structure for a moment, then leaps onto it and climbs his way to the handles.

"Here goes nothing!"

Zack pulls down on both of them, triggering an explosion that launches the antenna away from the ship and into the ocean. Zack is knocked back onto the catwalk by the force of the detonation and takes a moment to regain composure.

_"Connection is severed and I have full control again. Nicely done Zack."_

"Yeah? Well… next time… can the switches be… indoors?"

_"I'll make a design note. Find your brother and head to the bridge. Last sighting had him in the vicinity of the Pit."_

"Last sighting?"

_"Can't find him anywhere on the security cameras. I'll dispatch some sentinels to help you look; maybe he's just hiding in a corner somewhere."_

"Wouldn't surprise me one bit…"

Zack gets to his feet and stumbles back into the airlock.

_"Vessel is in Earth atmosphere. Pressurization cycle not required."_

The door leading back into the ship opens and Zack runs headlong into Cody.

"Oh hey! I was just coming to look for you."

Zack looks at his brother and notices that Cody has an emotionless expression and seems to be staring off into space.

"Hey. Bro. What's up?"

Cody doesn't respond.

"CICIL, something's wrong with Cody…"

_"I don't have eyes on you right now. What's he doing?"_

"It's not what he's doing… it's what he's not doing. He's not reacting to me or anything."

_"Bizarre. Cody? Can you hear me?"_

Cody shows no sign of noticing, but does gently escape his brother's grip and stumbles towards the airlock.

"Cody, what are you doing?"

_"What's happening?"_

"Cody! Snap out of it!"

_"Vessel is in Earth atmosphere. Pressurization cycle not required."_

Cody opens the other side of the airlock and steps out onto the catwalk.

"Nonono! Get back in here!"

_"Sentinels, double time it to Zack's location!"_

Without hardly a sound, Cody sways to the left and falls off the catwalk and into the ocean below.

"SHIT!"

A swarm of sentinels come charging down the hallway and rush past Zack, with two remaining behind to restrain him.

"LET GO! LET ME GET IN THERE AND GET HIM!"

_"Zack, the rocks! It's a miracle HE missed them."_

The swarm of robots goes over the edge and heads straight down towards the water, where Cody is bobbing up and down on the surface of the rough waves. Together, they grab onto him and lift him free and back towards the ship.

_"And now it seems I have two people in need of medical attention. What an eventful day this had been. Cody is headed to Medical, and I want you headed to the Bridge."_

"Why?"

_"Because that relay gave us some interesting info I just know you'll want to hear."_

* * *

A few minutes later, Zack arrives on the bridge with White. Alex is sitting in a chair nursing a bandaged face, while CICIL's avatar is standing at the center, surrounded with data from the relay.

_"Well that was… fun. I just had a rather astonishing and complicated conversation with the relay. But if it's any consolation for the hell we just went through, I have coordinates. The project is located in the Marinas Trench in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Judging by what I've pulled down from the relay's memory, there's a small army of people involved in the project. I've got letters, briefings, dossiers and reports that traveled between the project and the Citadel through this station."_

"Any idea as to what the project is?"

_"No, most of the information is non-revealing in nature, and the presence I quarreled with was cryptic on the matter. This is likely all intentional to maintain secrecy, but Sam is referenced in several documents and my conversation with the rouge entity made an obscure reference to Colin's successor, so I think we're on the right track. Also, I can infer from some conversations that the project is at least partially benefiting from technological advancements made in the construction of the Ishimura. A few prominent members of the maiden voyage's crew also seem to have resurfaced after going under the radar."_

"Such as?"

_"I've got Dr. Kyne and Duncan so far. There are also references to young Chris in here too in direct conversations between Colin and Duncan, but I believe they are casual, maybe even anecdotal just to throw any would-be snoopers off. Lastly, the relay's own hostile reaction and the supposed scale of this endeavor lead me to believe that Colin created a third generation AI in connection to it."_

"A third generation?"

_"My classifications assume that CABAL was the first generation and I am the second."_

"I didn't think Colin was focusing on AI tech really after creating you. There really wasn't a need; you were and still are already proficient in every way shape and form."

_"As flattering as the thought is, we have to assume there's some kind of artificial intelligence associated with Project Infinity, and that it is what got all annoyed at me digging for information. I suppose it could be derived from either me or CABAL with a different personality and improved programming, but until I can interact with it more firsthand, I won't know. The connection I had with the seemingly-sentient relay was far too brief to be sure."_

"How long until you can get us there?"

_"A few hours at most. In the meantime, we need to investigate the other big problem we have."_

"Cody?"

_"Yes. He is in a completely catatonic state, and aside from falling off the ship, has exhibited no signs of intelligent behavior. His brain is also showing limited activity."_

"Well, what's he been doing all this time then? When did this start?"

_"I do not know. At some point during the night, the security grid lost track of him in the vicinity of the Pit. I just assumed he was out collecting his thoughts after that rather tense interrogation that got Zack all mad at him, but apparently not."_

"Then we focus on that while on the way to the project."

_"Come to Medical in about ten minutes. I'll have completely preliminary medical examinations by then. Certainly wish we had brought a crew along… it would make this easier to diagnose."_

"For now it's just us four, so we'll have to do."

* * *

_"Ascendancy"_ – Halo 4: Original Soundtrack by Neil Davidge


	13. Connections

Chapter 13: _Connections_

* * *

"So. No change?"

_"None as far as I can tell."_

Zack, White and Alex are standing around Cody, who is laying on a hospital bed on the Medical Deck. He remains in a frozen state, with his eyes simply staring straight up at the ceiling.

"Do we have any better idea what caused this?"

_"Diagnostics were inconclusive… but I found these in his pocket."_

A sentinel comes forward, holding the memory keys for all to see.

"The keys…?"

_"I already knew they had acquired them, but I wasn't completely certain either twin had gained the knowledge to utilize them properly. It seems now that I can confirm that at least Cody has."_

"And you suspect that the keys are responsible for his… condition?"

_"It's my only logical guess. His brain could be suffering from a sensory overload connected to reliving memories of another person. If that's the case, he will regain consciousness whenever his mind is finished sorting through all the new information. That process could take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, assuming I am correct."_

"Did Colin leave any hint as to how to deal with this?"

_"No. Odd, since he knew that the twins would come to possess the keys, but perhaps he ran out of time."_

"Like with so many other things…"

There is a moment of awkward silence as the three stare at Cody with uncertain expressions.

"So… what do we do now?"

_"Head for the project. My guess is that a more certain solution will be found there. Meanwhile… perhaps we can spend some time examining the keys for any solution to Cody's current state."_

"And how do you suggest doing that?"

_"Let's divide and conquer. White and Zack, retrace his steps as best you can from when we lost him on the security grid. Alex and I will work from here on the computer side of things while keeping an eye on Cody at the same time."_

* * *

_"You're arriving at Cody's last known location prior to the airlock incident: Service Elevator C-E-04."_

Zack and White, armed with flashlights, are standing in front of the entrance to the elevator. The hologram on the doors shimmers a dull blue in the otherwise unlit area.

"Where does it go?"

"The Pit, if I remember correctly."

_"That's right. Around the time he vanished, I detected energy fluctuations across most of the Crew Deck, but I passed it off as an anomaly. A lot of things still aren't fixed from after the crash in Austin, hence the lack of lighting. That might also be the reason I lost track of him; I feel a bit blind down there."_

"Well Zack, you know your brother best. Lead on."

"If I had to guess…"

Zack taps the hologram.

"…he took it down and went to the Pit."

The doors open and the two step in. Zack sends the elevator on its way.

_"This is going to spit you out fairly close to the Pit itself, but you'll have to navigate some unpowered and possibly damaged areas to reach it."_

"Should be fun…"

The elevator arrives and opens to complete darkness.

"Let's take it nice and slow."

White and Zack cautiously step out and the doors quietly close behind them, cutting off the only light source. The usual hologram fails to materialize after they shut.

"CICIL, elevator door hologram needs repair down here."

There is no response.

"Well Zack… now we know why Cody vanished off the map."

The two kick on their flashlights and begin to carefully move down the winding corridor.

"So. Any idea why your brother would come down here?"

"He likes to brood sometimes… and me being hard on him probably didn't help."

"Cody's a bit of a loner?"

"Not as much as you might think, but he has his moments."

Zack abruptly puts his hand up and stops.

"What?"

Squinting his eyes, Zack peers into the darkness.

"I feel like we're not alone down here."

There is a sudden crashing noise from behind a door a little ways ahead of White and Zack. White draws his sidearm as Zack shines his flashlight at the door.

"Hologram is out. We can't get in… but whatever is in there can't get out."

"There's no manual way to open them?"

"Do you WANT to know what's behind there?"

Before Zack can respond, the hologram on the door fizzles back to life briefly and the door opens. A lone sentinel flies erratically out of the room, hits the ceiling, crashes to the floor and then powers off.

"That's one mystery solved. This sentinel has probably been stuck down here since the crash."

"You think she would've noticed."

"CICIL's not omnipotent you know. She can only 'see' through cameras and 'hear' through microphones. It looks like this whole habitat tower complex has been at least partially cut off from the ship's network AND power grid."

"There's gotta be backups somewhere."

"I think there's a backup set of fuel cells somewhere around here, but they should've kicked in automatically. If we're just retracing Cody's steps though, we may not need to hunt for them."

Zack nods and begins to move forward again down the corridor. The two continue in silence for a few minutes before suddenly stumbling upon a much larger-than-normal door with a working hologram, much to White and Zack's surprise.

"Why is this one door still working…?"

"Don't know."

As White walks up to and examines the door, Zack looks around with his flashlight in the darkness.

"Hey White, I think Cody's been through here. I found…"

Zack turns around. Both White and the door hologram are gone.

"What the hell? Mr. White?"

Zack's voice echoes around and receives no response. Clearly nervous, he slowly walks towards the door and examines it.

"Hm… manual release… manual release… aha!"

Zack pulls a lever just below the opening for the hologram. The door slowly opens up and Zack shrieks in fright as a seemingly unconscious White falls on him.

"HOLY SHIT!"

Whispering echoes and hazy apparitions begin to appear all around Zack, who drops White's body in surprise and sprints through the door.

"HELP! CICIL! ANYONE! DO SOMETHING!"

Blinded by fear, Zack sprints directly into the Pit itself and nearly trips over himself trying to stop as the malfunctioning hologram of Colin appears in front of him.

"GAH! Where the fuck did you come from?!"

_"I'm sorry. My responses a-are limited. You must ask the ri-ight questions."_

Zack looks behind him and sees movement in the shadows.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AROUND HERE!"

The hologram begins to change shape, and what was a faint white-tinted figure of Colin shifts into the glowing red projection of Sam that had screamed at Zack and the others on the Bridge only hours before.

"It's… you again!"

Sam smiles with an evil grin and slowly fades away into nothing. As the hologram vanishes, Zack's flashlight begins to flicker and grow dim.

"No! Nonononono!"

He looks around desperately as the light grows dimmer. After a few seconds, the flashlight goes out completely.

"…help?"

* * *

_"Alright, I just warned them about the damaged areas and…"_

"And what CICIL?"

The AI's avatar materializes next to Cody with a worried expression.

_"I just lost them on the security grid…"_

"What? How?"

_"I don't know. One moment they're leaving the elevator and then they're gone! No RIG status from White, no cameras, no sensors… nothing. That service elevator isn't responding to me anymore either."_

"If that's not strange then I don't know what is."

_"Hang on… I just detected what might have been a sentinel's signal for a moment down there… nope. Gone again. Couldn't verify it."_

The lights on the Medical Deck flicker several times at random. CICIL and Alex look up at them, then at each other.

"Let me guess… I can blame the artifact?"

_"Always a safe bet. And look at that: Cody's brain activity is suddenly off the charts."_

Alex looks over at the catatonic twin and sees Cody's eyes moving around rapidly, though the rest of his body remains lifeless.

_"It's like he's in REM sleep."_

"I am DEFINITELY not going to be able to sleep tonight after seeing that."

_"Creepy as it may be, I am discerning useful information here. Cody and the artifact have a connection right now, no doubt about it… but interference in the communications array tells me that something is communicating to the artifact from the outside."_

"You have any prior examples of this behavior?"

_"A handful. The Ishimura and Citadel artifacts were known to occasionally make connections to each other if brought too close to each other. All that ever resulted was annoying interference and power surges."_

"And if the Citadel is gone… "

_"We must be close to the project."_

* * *

"Zack!"

White is walking around alone among the dark corridors and silence, pistol in one hand and flashlight in the other.

"Five minutes ago you were there and now POOF. Gone…"

He walks out back into the room he and Zack had arrived in earlier and seems immediately agitated.

"God dammit, I'm walking in circles down here! Right back to square one and-"

The large door is standing open.

"Uh… I didn't leave you like that."

Raising both weapon and flashlight to the ready, White cautiously makes his way through the open door and towards the Pit.

"No! Nonononono!"

"Zack?"

White begins to run towards the source of the voice up ahead. He finds Zack passed out on the floor in front of a very dim and flickering hologram that is displaying the white lotus flower logo.

"Zack! What happened?!"

Zack doesn't respond, but all around him and White, the lights begin to come to life, illuminating the entire Pit in bright white light.

_"Basic repairs completed. Power has been restored."_

* * *

Zack and White:

_"Plasma Cutters Are Your Friend"_- Dead Space Soundtrack by Jason Graves

CICIL and Alex:

_"A Heated Discussion"_ – Assassin's Creed: Revelations Soundtrack by Lorne Balfe


	14. Lost Memories

Chapter 14: _Lost Memories_

* * *

_"Attention: basic system repairs are needed. Animi processing clusters 3 through 10 are reporting critical errors."_

"Oh will you just SHUT UP!"

Sam hurls a rock upwards and watches it clang off the grey Citadel and go into the ocean. He is sitting on a fallen and crumbling pillar near the structure's entrance, occasionally glancing at the spot where the golden light had appeared hours before.

"You had enough thinking power to make me relive a tiny piece of my adopted brother's life. I think you'll be fine without repairs."

He looks up at the Citadel, which is making faint groaning and creaking noises as a brisk wind blows over the entire virtual island. It casts a long shadow out towards the open ocean as the sun begins to fall in the distance.

"Why are you here?"

Sam slowly gets up and starts walking towards the entrance of the Citadel.

"Of all the things that he could put in this simulation… why a copy of the Citadel?"

"Well isn't it obvious? Intimidation."

Sam whirls around to see his alter-ego standing a few feet away with a smirk on his face.

"So, that whole 'see you later sucker' thing was a bit premature?"

"Not exactly. I'm in a bit of limbo."

"Do tell."

"The Animi sent me back into our mutual head, but since that head is still cryogenically frozen, I've got nothing to do except occasionally wander back in to this… beautified prison cell."

"Well that's just fantastic. So what do you want?"

"I noticed you moping around the island as usual and decided to drop in and see what you were thinking."

"You seem to be happy to also answer my open questions. Why do YOU think Colin put this thing in here?"

Sam gestures to the grey Citadel. His alternate looks up at it, snorts, and then spits on the ground.

"Like I said: intimidation. He's the one who imprisoned us in here, and he wanted us to always remember the why and how."

"The why and how…?"

"We may never have ventured inside this little monument to Colin's arrogance, but I bet he's got the place decked out like it's the early birthday gala all over again."

Sam suddenly doubles over in pain as a flood of fragmented images fill his head, mixed with voices, music, the clinking of glasses and all the other sounds of a sophisticated party.

_ "Apologies Sam, but by Colin's order, you are confined to your room for the duration of the party."_

_"The artifact is nice and hidden in the vault upstairs. Don't look so glum. Enjoy yourself."_

_"Sam, what are you doing down here?!"_

_"WAIT, WAIT! NO!"_

The rush of information abruptly stops, but Sam remains heeled over on the ground. The alter-ego Sam casually walks past him towards the entrance.

"Oh right. That's one of the memories that stayed with me…

He chuckles quietly.

…and it's always a fun one to relive."

A brief gust of wind strikes the island, and Sam's alter-ego dissipates into nothing. Sam slowly gets up, still visibly in pain, and glares at the Citadel.

"…then maybe it's time I went and rediscovered it myself."

Sam walks towards the entrance and disappears into the pitch black interior.

* * *

_"Oh, Dr. Kyne. What can I do for you?"_

_"I'm afraid the outlook isn't good Colin. CABAL and I just finished sorting out the latest test results."_

_"And…?"_

_"While Project Infinity does possess the requisite technology and computing horsepower to achieve what you're asking for… the long term effects it could have on Sam range from mildly detrimental to downright catastrophic. We're in uncharted territory in every sense, and even with all the preparation work you've asked us to do, it's impossible to guarantee that he won't be completely psychotic when you go to wake him up again. We've already seen him exhibit some behavior issues that could be an early sign of MPD."_

_"Multiple personality disorder? I mean, he has mood swings, but that's a bit extreme don't you think?"_

_"Unfortunately, no. He has at least one alternate personality that CABAL identified after extended observation: a rather sadistic and dark ego that shows almost no positive emotion. A potential second one manifested recently as well: that of a small helpless child that has no idea where he is or where his parents are."_

_"Well fuck if this isn't the most god-awful news I've ever received on the eve of a celebration. What do you suggest as our next step?"_

_"Firstly, he needs to be isolated in a secure environment where his alter egos cannot inflict harm, be it on other people or himself."_

_"So you suggest that I shut my own adoptive brother out of the whole gala? Are you kidding me?"_

_"Mingling with all those unfamiliar people in a very public setting is not a good idea. Since we have not established yet what the triggers are that cause him to switch personalities, there's a great risk that something could happen this evening."_

_"I can't believe this is happening. This is the first birthday I've had since the fire… and it took me long enough to cope with that. Now I have to face the fact that Sam, who was once the happiest person I knew, is losing his grip on sanity."_

_"You're not going to lose it on us too, are you?"_

_…_

_"No. I've come too far for that. And so has he."_

_…_

_Compiling of unknown sequence file completed._

* * *

Sam regains awareness of his surroundings and discovers that he is at the center of the grey Citadel's atrium. The light from the distant entrance is faint, and the metal structure groans and creaks in the face of the stiff ocean gusts outside.

_"An unknown memory sequence has been successfully compiled. Only one remains."_

"Guess the other me is smarter than I give him credit for. That IS why the Citadel is here."

_"Error: file system reports third unknown memory sequence is fragmented."_

"Ah, but he wants to make me work for it…"

_"Error: automatic file repair has failed. Manual restoration required before compiling process can begin."_

Sam smiles faintly as he looks up though the massive open shaft that runs the height of the Citadel.

"Let's get started."

* * *

Sam and the Alter-Ego:

_"Last of the Palaiologi" _– Assassin's Creed: Revelations Soundtrack by Lorne Balfe

The Second Memory:

_"Oculi Omnium"_ – Eric Whitacre


	15. Arcadia

Chapter 15: _Arcadia_

* * *

"Hey. Zack. You awake?"

"Ugh… my head… where am I?"

"Medical Deck. Something did a number on you…"

Zack sits up on his hospital bed and looks around. He is in the Ishimura Clinic with Cody nearby, still comatose and staring at the ceiling. A somewhat concerned-looking White is at the foot of the bed, one foot tapping nervously on the floor.

_"Did a number indeed… I don't know how exactly, but something was let into our system. It manifested itself in the Pit, but I never got a look at it."_

Images of the glowing red hologram abruptly hit Zack's mind in a wave of pain, and the memories from earlier come flooding back.

"It… I think it was Sam."

CICIL materializes her avatar directly next to the bed and joins in White's now-dumbfounded facial expression.

"Sam. Are you sure?"

"He was… glowing red… and just smiling at me, in a twisted and evil kind of way."

_"Then I suppose it would confirm our fears that he IS part of all this in some way."_

"How can we be sure?"

_"We can't, but I see no way to explain away him appearing and tormenting the twins as coincidence."_

"Both of us?"

_"The same 'thing' that accosted you also might be responsible for your brother's current state. The ship's artifact was also involved… somehow. Still working that one out."_

Taking a moment to find his footing, Zack carefully gets out of bed and trudges over to his brother.

"Sam caused this?"

"Possibly."

"Then tell me we're close to the project. I want some fucking answers."

_ "We arrived above the coordinates about an hour before you woke up. With our destination underwater and this being a spaceship, we cannot investigate from a comfortable perch."_

"And I guess you have a way to solve that?"

_"The project appears to be approximately a quarter mile below the surface and well above maximum pressure tolerances of most modern submersible craft. To that effect, I've requisitioned us one."_

"You 'requisitioned' one?"

_"Colin dabbled in the design of submersible vessels after his work on the Ishimura's own pressure hull, though in space the effect is reversed from what normally happens underwater. He ripped apart an Ishimura shuttle and put it back together as a submarine prototype, but gave up because he didn't have enough time to devote to it. The prototype vessel is still sitting in the shuttle maintenance bay as it has been for over a year now."_

"It's not going to implode and kill us is it?"

_"Don't think so; I checked the design and it seems sound. Sentinels are checking the thing out now and repairing it. I'm also making some minor final adjustments to fix a few things that Colin never quite finished."_

"My god, that kid has way too many projects lying around."

_"You have no idea…"_

White turns towards Cody.

"What do we do with this one?"

_"I honestly have no clue. I mean, I don't think he's going anywhere, but I don't want to just unceremoniously leave him here unattended."_

"You're here."

_"I'm everywhere. That doesn't count."_

"Riiight."

_"Besides, without sentinels present in the immediate vicinity, I am physically incapable of keeping him in check. I refer you to the airlock and ocean incident earlier as an example…"_

"Ok, ok, I get it. Someone has to stay and watch him."

"I vote Alex. He's sleeping right now and we're not, so he can't say no."

_"Can't argue with that logic. If Cody somehow wakes up, I'll send him and Alex down to join you two."_

* * *

A few minutes later, Zack and White are standing in the main hangar bay, wearing full RIG suits and armed with pistols and flashlights. A fairly normal-looking shuttle is waiting for them, with the presence of three large pump-jets on the back instead of rocket engines being the only giveaway that it is not standard.

"No rockets and no thrusters. We'll be a giant brick when we leave the ship."

_"Relax. I'm going to lower you down nice and gently using those woefully under-utilized gravity tethers that were originally intended to corral asteroids for mining. You know, this ship's ORIGINAL purpose?"_

"I don't think you realize how mundane your original job was going to be."

_"Actually I like simple things. But we digress; the shuttle is waiting."_

* * *

A massive splash disturbs the relative peace of the open ocean as the shuttle is unceremoniously dropped nearly twenty feet to the surface.

"Are you kidding me woman?! That's your idea of gentle?"

_"To be completely fair, they've never been used before. Just be glad the tethers actually worked."_

White grumbles something under his breath and he goes about preparing the shuttle to dive.

_"What was that?"_

"Nothing, nothing… let's just get down there."

The shuttle-turned-submersible descends beneath the waves and light from the surface quickly tapers off as the depth increases.

"How are we even going to see where this project is anyway?"

_"Sonar tells me that there are floating spotlights in the trench. For work on the exterior of whatever it is, if I had to guess."_

"Can you flip them on?"

_"If you get closer, yes. In the mean time, make do with what's on the sub itself."_

Several bright floodlights come to life, bathing the area directly in front of the cockpit with a cone of white light.

"That helps I guess…"

Zack turns to a hologram near his arm and does a double-take.

"What? What is it?"

"Look at that: about 100 meters ahead of us. The ocean floor just vanishes…"

"I'm no geography expert, but I'm going to guess that's where the trench is."

_"Correct. There's a small canyon-like formation that you can follow that leads almost right to where the project is."_

"I see it."

Zack traces the channel with his finger on the sonar hologram, and the heads-up-display in front of White projects a line to follow.

"Easy does it…"

_"You have about three feet of clearance on each side."_

"Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?"

_"Take it at face value."_

White cautiously guides the sub through the canyon as it meanders downwards and towards the edge.

"I've got a small ridge ahead."

_"That's where the canyon ends. The trench and project should be right on the other side."_

"You got those lights?"

_"Most of them appear to be broken from lack of maintenance."_

White looks ahead and sees a red glow emanating from the trench.

"Something's lighting the project up anyway."

"And now the big reveal: let's see what Colin was working on."

White guides the craft over the edge and they come upon a massive gorge that descends seemingly into infinity. Along the near side of the trench, an entire complex of structures has been built into the rock and some are even jutting out over the abyss. Massive pipes carry what appears to be magma in a patchwork pattern around the complex and up from the pit. Standing off from the structures in the cliff face and bathed in the red glow of the magma is an enormous vessel that at first glance appears to be even larger than the Ishimura, with a similar design to match. It floats powerless above the trench, held in place by two gravity tethers mounted amongst the buildings on the rock face.

"It's…"

"…another ship?!"

_"Well, it looks like Colin was plotting to replace me and the Ishimura before we even got off the ground. Ouch."_

"Wait. This one doesn't have tethers."

"Are you sure it's not just incomplete?"

_"The tethering arms were a part of the core construction process the first time around, because they were directly attached to the ship's spine. If they exist on this second vessel, they'd already be there. It looks like this ship has a much different purpose, even if the design is visually similar to the Ishimura."_

"See a name anywhere?"

"Looking… got it! Same place as the Ishimura; along the front neck."

Zack follows White's finger and gaze to the point at the front of the ship, and sure enough, the name _"ARCADIA"_ is spelled out in massive letters.

"Arcadia huh? Quite a name."

_"Oh… this makes much more sense now."_

"How so?"

_"Colin always said the Ishimura was but one part of his plans for space. I assumed that meant he wanted to build more mining ships, but what I now think he actually meant was ships of other purposes. With a name like Arcadia… this is very likely a colony ship."_

"You think this thing was built to colonize other planets?!"

_"And terraform them too, if I had to guess. I know for sure he was experimenting with that already. I didn't realize he was far enough along to integrate any technology like that into a working vessel."_

"Do you realize the implications of this ship becoming public knowledge would be?!"

_"Elation followed by war?"_

"Exactly."

_"So he was building it in secret. It looks like he even tapped the magma flows WAY down beneath the base of the trench to harvest raw materials without arousing outside suspicion."_

"I'm guessing that's what all those buildings are for."

_"Further ingenious use of resources: the two gravity tethers keeping the ship from plummeting into the trench are spares from the Ishimura construction."_

"Anything else interesting?"

_"Yes. The ship and its attending structures are all insulated from the ocean pressure and temperature by a shielding system of sorts."_

"Shields…? Are we talking Star Trek here?"

_"Nothing quite that crazy. It's some kind of energy barrier similar to the one the Ishimura uses to cordon off zero gravity areas. It's creating a few inches of space between the ocean and exterior of all the buildings and the ship."_

"I'm starting to question the kid's sanity."

_"I don't think he was so much insane as perhaps paranoid; insanity was very much his brother's department. Paranoia would also help to explain why Sam is supposedly down here."_

"You really think he stashed his nutcase brother down here in the deepest part of the ocean with a giant spaceship and the third artifact?"

_"Nothing would surprise me. Not after the way the last year has been."_

Zack and White sit in silence for a moment, simply looking out over the scene in front of them.

"So… how do we get on board?"

_"Well… it looks like there WERE multiple points of entry from the facility to the ship, but all of the bridges between the two are gone. I assume their shielding failed and they fell into the abyss."_

"How comforting."

_"That said, there's one more that seems intact. It's just been retracted to the facility side."_

"So access was cut off intentionally?"

_"When the project was abandoned I guess. To discourage curious people like us."_

"Maybe he really was paranoid…"

"Is there no way to board the ship itself?"

_"Nope. Locked up tight it seems. You'll have to go to the facility first and then figure out how to fix that bridge."_

"Why is it never easy?"

"Because it wouldn't be Colin if it was."

* * *

Zack Wakes Up:

_"Cesare Borgia"_ – Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Soundtrack by Jesper Kyd

* * *

Submarine Descent and the Project:

_"You Know Her?"_ - Portal 2: Songs to Test By (Volume 1)


	16. The Return

Chapter 16: _The Return_

* * *

A lone car engine disturbs the peace of the otherwise-silent city of Austin. It is the late afternoon, and golden rays of sunlight are struggling to penetrate a fast-moving layer of grey clouds. The gaping hole in the skyline where the Citadel once stood is still empty, though the column of smoke from the spot as subsided. Meandering along the still freeways and abandoned vehicles is a black Audi coupe that is being driven without any regard for the rules of the road by its lone occupant. Approaching the top of a rise in the freeway, the car begins to slow down and stops at the top. The driver's door opens and out steps Chris Thorne, wearing black boots, grey pants and a heavy black leather overcoat with a small pin on the collar that bears the Citadel's emblem. His face looks tired and his hair appears to only be loosely maintained. Chris stares off in the distance in the direction of the airport, where the mangled two-part hulk of the Sky Carrier can be made out along the runway.

"No more secrets. No more deception. I will know what happened."

He continues to stare into the distance for a few moments before returning to the car and driving off down the freeway.

* * *

A half-hour later, the Audi pulls up to a gate in the chain-link fence that surrounds the airport grounds. Chris looks out the windshield of the car and up at the looming forward section of the Sky Carrier, which is jutting out over the fence line and up at an angle.

"Knock knock."

He guns the engine and smashes his way onto the property. The car's headlights burst to life as it enters the shadow of the wreck and Chris cautiously drives his way through the debris field on the ground and towards the severed rear section of the ship, which is several thousand feet behind the front. Even from a distance, the silhouette of the ship's bridge can be seen pointing up awkwardly at a 45 degree angle to the ground. Chris drives the car as close as he can, then turns off the engine and gets out. He begins to pick his way up through the wreckage towards the bridge, even as the sun begins to set and the site becomes even darker.

"Well… you may never fly again, but maybe there's still some use left in you."

Chris clambers up and arrives at the only visible entrance to the bridge: a three foot hole in its ceiling. He drops down without much effort and finds himself standing exactly where he had been unceremoniously sent flying in the crash only days before.

"Now where's that console?"

Chris looks around the nearly-obliterated room and spots a relatively-intact station right next to where the SOS beacon landed.

"Aha."

He crosses to it and begins fiddling with the wiring.

_"En-gaging… aux-aux-iliary power-er-errrr sysss… tems."_

A cascade of sparks springs forth from various spots around the bridge as electricity returns to the room. The console in front of Chris springs to life without any ill effects except for an occasional flicker of the holographic screen.

_"User id-identified a-a-as: Chistopher-er-errr Thorne. Access grant-ed."_

Chris pulls a small piece of paper from his pocket. Written on it in the hasty penmanship of Alexander Bergeron is simply 'Site B'.

"Whatever Site B is, it must be pretty damn important for Alex to hide this in my own house before even breaking the news of Colin's death to me."

He folds it up and puts it back in his pocket.

"Computer, what is the location of the facility known as 'Site B'?"

_"S-S-Site B. Official desi-gna-tion: Installation B-Beta. Location: Aleu-eutian Island Chain. Status: off-ff-line."_

"The Aleutians? In Alaska? That's… weird. Even for Colin. Computer, what is Installation Beta's purpose?"

_"Installation Beta. Pur-rpose: supraluminal comm-ommunications rela-ay-ay."_

"A relay between what, exactly?"

_"Installations Al-alpha, codename Citadel, and Delta, co-dename Infinity."_

Chris appears stunned.

"So Infinity is real… and that means…"

The facial expression of amazement quickly changes to disgust.

"…HE'S still alive."

Chris whips out a flash drive from his pocket and plugs it into the terminal.

"Computer, download all available data on Installations Beta and Delta to this external drive."

_"Complying. Complete."_

Chris yanks the drive out and pockets it.

"Computer, are any of the Carrier's fighters intact?"

_"Sc-anning. One F-35B available and rep-o-o-rting launch-able in aft hangar bay."_

"Prepare it. I'm going to Alaska."

* * *

Several hours later, Chris is awoken by an alarm in his ear and growing turbulence.

_"Warning: turbulence. Warning: turbulence."_

"Disengage autopilot."

_"Autopilot deactivated."_

Chris grabs hold of the controls and begins to try and stabilize the jet, which is being tossed around in a growing wintery storm that covers nearly the entire weather radar screen.

"Establish connection to Installation Beta!"

_"Communicating. IFF signal acknowledged. Access granted."_

From somewhere in the distance, a gravity tether beam is projected and it envelops the fighter, pulling it down towards Earth and keeping it steady despite the extreme storm.

_"Gravity tether malfunction."_

The jet suddenly goes spinning out of control as the tether beam flickers and loses its grasp.

_"Warning: stall. Warning: stall."_

"Stabilize!"

_"Automatic correction in progress."_

As the F-35 continues in a downward spiral, blood rushes out of Chris' head and he begins to lose consciousness.

_"Warning: g-forces. Warning: g-forces. Warning: altitude. Warning: altitude."_

Chris is just about to black out when the jet comes to a very quick stop and is re-enveloped by a gravity tether beam.

_"Gravity tether re-engaged. Now entering Installation Beta."_

"…fantastic…"

Chris slumps back into the seat as the jet is reeled in smoothly to a small hangar built into the cliffs of the island. The fighter is pulled along and slotted into one of two small docking cradles and the hangar doors close quickly, muffling the storm.

"Open."

_"Canopy opening. Powering down."_

The fighter canopy pops up and retracts away with barely a sound. Chris, still faint, manages to slowly pull himself up and out of the seat, but upon touching the docking ladder his legs give out and Chris goes tumbling down it.

"OW."

He stays on the floor, collecting his breath and sense of balance as the whine of the jet dies away, leaving the space fairly quiet.

* * *

_"The submarine bay has successfully drained. You can now exit."_

White taps a hologram and the makeshift submarine's door opens. He and Zack step out into a cavernous submarine bay that is as dark as it is wet.

"Nobody's home."

_"According to your suits… the place is completely dead. No signals and a very weak indication of a power grid."_

"All the juice is probably going to that shielding."

_"Well it would be reasonable to assume that there was enough excess power to also keep the facility at least lit. Find me a console or something and I'll start snooping."_

Zack spots a door in the corner of the chamber projecting a faint hologram.

"Over there."

He leads the way with White following close behind. They approach the door and find it to be half-open, with the trademark circular hologram flickering and displaying random words.

"Broken."

"Look at the floor."

Zack looks down and jumps backwards at the sight of a trail of blood leading from just inside the submarine bay through the door and into the darkness beyond.

"CICIL, are you seeing this?"

_"This is… bad."_

"No kidding. But… nothing ventured, nothing gained."

Zack steps into the gap of the doorway and bashes the broken door the rest of the way open with his shoulder.

"Damn. Not bad."

White follows Zack through the opening and clicks on his suit's spotlight. He looks down and illuminates the blood trail, which continues onwards down a poorly-lit corridor.

"CICIL, do you have schematics?"

_"Not yet. I'm using your suit's sensors to map out the immediate area so I can orient myself. Follow the hallway and keep looking for a computer terminal."_

The two begin cautiously making their way down the corridor, which is only lit by the occasional dim red emergency light overhead. The blood trail thickens as Zack and White head further into the facility.

_"Picking up something on Zack's sensors. Wait. Now it's gone."_

"Please don't fuck with us CICIL…"

_"I wasn't joking. I'm not even sure what it was. A brief blip on the motion tracker and then nothing."_

"Is that supposed to make us feel better?"

There is a brief and uneasy silence over the radio.

_"Ok, just in case that WAS something real and not a malfunction or otherwise, I'm going to drop sonar buoys from up top here and map out the entire facility. Stand by."_

Another moment of silence passes before a holographic map materializes in front of White's suit. Two buoys are shown floating at the surface with long tethers reeling down sonar pods into the trench. The view suddenly reorients around White's location and a holographic blueprint of the facility begins to draw itself out.

"That's handy."

_"Hm… this place is… big. Bigger than I thought. These two aren't going to be able to map it out in any kind of record time. Keep going and I'll watch the map. These sonar pods should also be able to pick up pretty much anything bigger than a mouse wandering around."_

"Comforting…"

Zack and White resume walking again and come to another door, this time closed and locked. The blood trail goes right under it and presumably onwards.

"Locked door."

_"I don't even see the facility's network, so it stands to reason that the door control isn't working either. If it's similar to the Ishimura, I should be able to override local locks on an individual basis."_

The dim hologram abruptly vanishes and the door opens.

_"Continue down this hall until you reach a medium-sized room that will probably look like a junction of sorts. I'll tell you where to go from there."_

"Got it."

Zack and White continue onwards and the door quietly closes behind them. As they walk, the hair on Zack's neck begins to stand up.

"I feel like we're being watched."

"As do I."

White draws his sidearm and Zack does the same.

_"Expecting trouble?"_

"We both just have an unsettling feeling. That's all."

_"That's… oh. Hello again."_

"Huh?"

_"Another blip… this time on White's motion tracker. Directly ahead of you two about twenty yard. Right at the entrance to that junction room."_

"Is it still there?"

_"It's stationary and definitely there, because Zack's suit is picking it up now too."_

"Can you tell what it is?"

_"Obscured by what looks like debris, but it's roughly human sized."_

Zack and White raise their pistols to firing position simultaneously and begin to step in near-silence down the corridor.

_"Fifteen yards."_

The silhouetted shapes of a large room can be barely made out ahead.

_"Ten yards."_

Zack flicks the safety off on his pistol.

_"Five yards."_

Taking a deep breath, Zack storms forward for the last yard or so and bursts into the junction room. It is completely empty.

_"It's gone. Well that's just weird. No, scratch that actually, it's fucking creepy."_

"Well that was fun… now where are we?"

_"The room appears to be an annex for this section of the facility. It's also an observation point for trench operations."_

"How? There's no windows."

_"There are. They're just shuttered up."_

White looks ahead towards the center of the room and sees a small podium with a single button on top.

"How much do you want to bet that's our button?"

He crosses over and presses it. Creaking and groaning, massive metal shutters retract away on the far side of the room, revealing huge floor-to-ceiling windows that look out on the trench and Arcadia in the distance.

_"That's not a half-bad view, actually."_

The sound of someone taking a sharp breath nearby causes Zack to whirl around.

"You hear that?"

_"Corner to the right of where you came in. Motion tracker is blank but I have a limited heat signature."_

Zack and White dash over and discover that the blood trail leads to the same corner. White turns his suit's spotlight back on and it illuminates a badly mauled and barely conscious Terrance Kyne.

"Dr. Kyne?!"

_"What in the world?!"_

"Hey! Doc! It's me, Zack! What happened?"

The doctor is unresponsive and just stares off towards the now-open window.

"No use. He's catatonic, probably from blood loss."

White calls up a hologram and taps a few times. A needle filled with a white gel pops up from the left wrist. He injects Dr. Kyne with it.

_"First-aid stabilization gel administered. Should be getting a vitals reading from the nanobots right about… now…"_

A hologram materializes above Kyne, showing all his vital signs and a representation of his body with various parts highlighted.

"He's lost a lot of blood and has a few fractures."

_"The stabilization gel will fix the blood problem. Just give it a little time to help bring him around."_

White stands back up and leans against the wall.

"So we've got an abandoned and damaged facility… multiple severed points of entry to the Arcadia… and Dr. Kyne all banged up."

"The project wasn't abandoned cleanly I guess. Something must've happened. I wonder if it had to do with Sam-"

At the mentioning of Sam's name, Dr. Kyne gasps loudly and abruptly grabs White's nearby leg, startling both him and Zack.

"Doctor?!"

"You… must… not… let… him…"

"Not let him? Not let Sam do what?"

"…you must… you must… not let him out…"

"You mean he IS down here? Is he imprisoned?"

Kyne weakly nods his head.

"We built an elaborate containment program…. cryogenic suspension combined… with a virtual reality system. The Animi."

"So his body is frozen…"

"…but his mind is free to wander in this computer?"

"Yes. There are… limitations of course. Safe-guards… but I believe they have broken down…"

"Why?"

"The artifact is to blame… it corrupts everything around it. It… fractured Sam's personality… there are two of him now. One that is how he used to be… thoughtful, kind… but the other is the opposite. Cruel. Vindictive."

"Holy crap, the third artifact really IS as bad as we thought."

_"The cruel irony is that it is probably powering this entire project. Am I right Kyne?"_

"Yes… but you must understand: Sam's mind began to break long before he came here. The idea of the freezing was to slow the process until Colin could come and rehabilitate him… but it backfired, despite repurposing all of Project Infinity to assist in the goal. We watched, the team and I, as every day the Animi would struggle more and more to contain his rapidly expanding mental conflict. A few days ago… the system finally broke under the strain."

_"HE'S LOOSE?!"_

"Not yet… one part of his mind is back in his body, and the other is in the machine. The body is also still frozen. But if the cryogenic plant fails or is shutdown, and Sam thaws… whatever part of him that is in the machine will be left behind to die slowly."

"Well damn if Colin doesn't know how to royally fuck up a situation."

"This… isn't Colin's fault… it's the artifact's. It has an agenda almost… the others work without much trouble; this one seems to be constantly undermining those who use it."

"Where do we find it?"

"Aboard the Arcadia… it's powering the main reactor at about half capacity. But all the bridges were destroyed, there's no way aboard!"

_"Actually, one appears to have been retracted rather than dropped into the trench."_

"So… Duncan DID succeed… that's good…"

"Duncan's down here too?!"

"He was. I don't know what's become of him… we were separated when Sam's apparitions attacked from the ship. I told him to try and save one way aboard, so maybe we could fix this. But my body is broken… I can be of no use now."

_"I've got sentinels on the way to bring you back to the surface for medical treatment. You supplement my remote assistance, since this is your domain."_

"WAS my domain… but yes. I'll help however I can."

"Then let's get started."

* * *

Chris Returns to Austin:

_"Awakening"_ – Halo 4: Original Soundtrack by Neil Davidge

* * *

Fighter Jet Free-fall:

_"Belly of the Beast" _- Halo 4: Original Soundtrack by Neil Davidge

* * *

Nobody Home:

_"The Future Starts With You"_ - Portal 2: Songs to Test By (Volume 1)

* * *

The Discovery of Dr. Kyne:

_"I'm Different"_- Portal 2: Songs to Test By (Volume 1)


	17. Manipulation

Chapter 17: _Manipulation_

* * *

The massive entry doors to the grey Citadel shut with an ominous boom, and Sam finds himself alone in the hall of statues.

"So. Two fragments. This can't be too hard."

He begins to walk forward, passing the ominous shapes of statues as he does. The lighting is incredibly dim and the only sounds are of Sam's footsteps, which reverberate loudly off the metal walls and marble floors.

"I only ever went into the real Citadel a handful of times… if this is a full re-creation, then I'll be lucky if I don't get lost…"

Sam continues ahead and emerges into the atrium. A lightly shimmering grey hologram catches his eye at the center of the room on the raised elevator platform.

"I thought this place was supposed to be dead."

He fast-walks over to the hologram and taps it. A low-quality image of CABAL's head appears.

_"Welcome Sam. Per Colin's instructions, I have inserted a complete re-creation of the Citadel into the Animi program for your use. The building will remain dormant to conserve system resources until you enter for the first time. At the conclusion of this recording, you will be presented the option to activate the structure. The Animi does not possess sufficient processing power to re-create every last component of the Citadel, so only limited functionality has been included. There will be no virtual re-creation of myself, for example. If you leave the structure dormant, this recording will remain active so you have the option later."_

CABAL vanishes and is replaced by a yes/no prompt.

"Wake this thing up…?"

Sam looks around.

"Well… it WOULD help to have some lights on."

He taps yes and the hologram vanishes. For several moments, nothing happens.

"Uh… is it broken?"

A distant and guttural rumbling begins to become audible from somewhere far below Sam. The Citadel begins to tremble and suddenly a wave of energy bursts up from through the floor and continues upwards. As the wave progresses, every electrical device from lights to the elevator platforms comes back to life. Sam looks up in awe as the power flows towards the top of the Citadel.

"Damn… now THAT was cool."

Suddenly, a shimmering light flies past Sam and heads upwards through the elevator shaft.

"What the hell…? Oh crap, I bet that's a fragment!"

Sam hops on an elevator platform and sends it rocketing upwards. In addition to the rushing wind around the platform, the level of noise in general starts to quickly rise as the Citadel comes back to life. A half a mile above the fast-rising elevator, the light arrives at the top of the Citadel and disappears off to one side.

"Dammit! Go faster!"

Instead, the platform begins to slow down as it approaches the top level itself.

"Or do that I guess…"

The elevator quietly arrives and Sam steps off. He looks around and notices that the doors leading to the control room are standing open, and a faint glowing light can be seen coming from the far end of the corridor. Contrary to moments before, it is now completely silent.

"Is that…?"

"I think it is."

Sam's alter-ego materializes next to Sam, startling him.

"GAH! What the hell are YOU doing here?"

"Just dropped by to spectate."

"Great…"

Sam begins to walk towards the light with his alternate close behind. As the two near the control room, the light increases in strength and is soon revealed to be a small holographic white emerald floating in mid-air.

"As I predicted: a fragment. Seems fitting that it's hiding up here."

Sam reaches out and touches the floating image. It flashes brightly and then vanishes.

_"Fragment positively identified. Compiling."_

"So I guess I've gotta find another one somewhere in here…"

"I guess. Have fun!"

Sam's alter-ego disappears with a disturbing laugh that echoes throughout the area.

"…jerk. Now if I were the second fragment, where would I be hiding?"

_"Compiling complete. One fragment remains."_

"Computer, can the memory be opened now?"

_"Memory viewing is possible, but not recommended. Gaps in the timeline will exist."_

Sam takes a seat in the control room's central chair and goes into deep thought.

"Gaps… the memory won't be complete… but I want- no, I NEED to know what happened… even if I only get the general idea…"

He gets up from the chair and takes a deep breath.

"Load memory sequence three."

_"Warning: memory sequence three is fragmented. If viewed, the timeline will be incomplete."_

"Load anyway."

_"Initializing."_

The Citadel slowly fades away around Sam, leaving him floating in an endless black void.

"Please work…"

The void flickers several times.

"Come on!"

An environment slowly begins to materialize around Sam. The atrium of the real life Citadel takes shape, though bits and pieces of the room are outright missing, exposing the black void beyond. There are large banquet tables set up and the central elevator platforms have been turned into a stage of sorts. Suddenly the room is illuminated by chandeliers hanging from poorly-rendered temporary scaffolds near the ceiling. The sound of rushing wind picks up and with it, all the sounds of a large party come to life, with music, chatting and the sound of plates and glasses.

_"Multiple rendering errors. Attempting to-"_

Sam looks around, confused at the abrupt cutoff of the Animi's voice. People now begin to suddenly pop into view, either sitting at tables or dancing in front of the stage. The completed scene flickers and grows fuzzy several times before finally starting to play out.

_"This doesn't look particularly unusual."_

Only a few seconds into the memory, the partygoers suddenly freeze and look up as a platform descends from the upper levels of the Citadel. The room's lights flicker out and an orange and yellow glow begins to emanate from the elevator.

"What the hell…?"

Sam turns and sees that Colin is right next to him, looking at the elevator in bewilderment. Alarms begin to go off all around, and the expression quickly changes to panic.

"…Sam? WAIT, WAIT NO!"

A shockwave of energy bursts out in all directions from the elevator, tossing entire tables and their guests into the air in an avalanche of chaos. The cables holding up the chandeliers snap and they come crashing down, followed by the scaffolding above them. A vortex of broken glass and debris begins to form around the elevator. Through all the flying objects, Sam can make out what looks vaguely like his alter-ego standing at the center, with a glowing spherical object in his right hand.

_"M-me…? Oh god! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"_

He looks around as people are injured or killed in every corner of the atrium. A swarm of sentinels enters from above, but they are immediately sucked into the vortex and violently ejected back out in the direction of surviving partiers.

_"Evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately!"_

A panicking and disorganized mob of people begin to flee towards the hall of statues and main entrance, with debris and exploding sentinels being hurled after them. As they run for the exit, the scene begins to fall apart and crumble into the black void. Within seconds, the memory ends and Sam is thrown back into the control room of the virtual Citadel. He stays on the floor for a moment, catching his breath.

"I-I…"

"Wow. That was even more vivid than my own memory of it. And it wasn't even complete! Oh I can't wait for you to find the second fragment!"

Sam looks up at his grinning alter-ego, disgusted.

"You! YOU DID THIS!"

"Oh no my dear delusional counterpart, YOU managed that piece of work all on your own. I didn't come into existence until the immediate aftermath of that memory."

Sam lowers his head back to the floor and begins crying profusely.

"You are so pathetic sometimes. I'm going to go do something… or rather anything, else. Let me know when you've gotten it together and found the second fragment."

* * *

Exploring the Grey Citadel:

_"Journey in the Dark"_ – Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Soundtrack by Howard Shore

* * *

The First Fragment:

_"The Shadow of the Past"_ – Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Soundtrack by Howard Shore


	18. Betrayal

Chapter 18: _Betrayal__  
_

* * *

_"Dr. Kyne is safely aboard the submarine and headed to the surface, but he will be in no shape to help us for a while. You two should continue your investigation of the facility."_

White and Zack are still standing in the large observation room, both looking out on the Arcadia in the distance.

"And where do you suggest we go next?"

_"Hug the trench wall and try to get closer to the Arcadia. There has to be a control room of sorts for the facility where you can do some digging and turn the power back on."_

"Got it."

White motions towards the start of a darkened hallway leading deeper into the facility.

"No sense in wasting time. Let's move."

* * *

Up on the Ishimura, Alex is sitting quietly at the Medical Deck nurse's station with his feet propped up and a camera feed from White's suit hovering as a hologram in front of him.

"CICIL, have you finished mapping the facility yet?"

_"Not yet. This place is proving to be far larger than anticipated."_

"Show me."

_"I don't have a hologram projector big enough."_

"Wow. That big huh? Shrink it and show me on the bridge.

_"Need I remind you that the clinic is, in fact, occupied, and that you are supposed to be keeping tabs on our lone patient?"_

"No reminding necessary. I am aware."

_"Then you can wait to see the map."_

"Oh fine."

Alex puts his feet back up and resumes watching the camera feed.

* * *

_"Another branch of the corridor ahead. CICIL, which way?"_

_"Keep right."_

_"Hey White… do you have the feeling that we're being watched…?"_

_"You know… I sort of do."_

_"Detecting something on Zack's motion tracker."_

_"Great, this whole thing again."_

* * *

Alex puts his feet down and leans forward to get a better look at the video feed.

"Am I the only one who sees a faint light ahead?"

_"I see it too… but they clearly don't."_

"Well are you going to tell them?"

_"I… can't. Downlink to them has stopped working. We can only receive the feed."_

* * *

_"CICIL can you give us a quick pass of sonar over the area ahead?"_

There is silence on the other end of the feed.

_"CICIL? Hello?"_

_"What's wrong White?"_

_"We've lost our connection."_

* * *

"Oh this is NOT good…"

_"You're telling me."_

On the video feed, the faint light begins to become brighter as Zack and White approach it, still oblivious to its presence.

_"Readings from the suits are going completely insane."_

"In what way?"

_"Radiation backscatter, airborne electrical activity, motion tracker. They're all going berserk."_

The feed suddenly flickers and then fades to white noise.

_"Uplink connection lost."_

"Get it back."

The lights in the nurse's station flicker slightly.

_"We've got our own problems."_

Alex nearly falls out of his chair as the Ishimura trembles.

_"Reactor flaring!"_

"I guess that tells us what we need to know… the third artifact IS down there!"

_"Commencing emergency reactor shutdown. Falling back on fuel cells."_

Across the entire ship, everything powered by electricity goes dead and the Ishimura is overcome by silence for almost a minute.

"Any day now…"

_"Backup systems engaged."_

Everything around Alex slowly comes back to life, and the door to the main ward opens.

_"I think you should go check on Cody."_

"Why?"

_"Don't ask. Just do it."_

Confused, Alex rises to his feet and strolls through the door, which slams shut behind him.

"…was that necessary?"

_"Potentially."_

The captain rolls his eyes and continues to the lone occupied bed, where Cody continues to stare endlessly up at the ceiling. Alex gives him the once over before shrugging.

"He looks the same to me."

"I beg to differ."

Alex nearly shrieks in fright as Cody speaks, though his eyes remain affixed to the ceiling.

"Can everyone just act normally around this place? PLEASE?! My blood pressure can't take much more of this."

"Normal as a matter of perspective, Alex."

_"That's rather philosophical of you."_

"I find a sense of peace and reason has overtaken me for whatever reason. It's refreshingly different."

"Someone tell me this isn't happening."

Cody sits up in bed and looks straight at Alex.

"And why don't you want it to be happening?"

"Because I liked the previous version of you a bit more."

"Too bad."

Cody hops out of bed with seemingly no effort.

_"Well aren't you sprightly today? That lengthy dream-state of yours rearrange anything else besides your personality?"_

"It wasn't a dream-state. Or even a coma."

_"Then what was it?"_

"Simply? Nothing."

"I don't follow."

"It wasn't anything. It's just a big gap."

Alex throws his hands up in the air.

"I give up; you have COMPLETELY boggled my mind with this nonsense."

"And I won't try to sort it out for you. Has the submarine returned yet?"

Alex, who was moving to leave, now spins around on his heels and stares right at Cody.

"Submarine…? We didn't discuss that until well after you went into your 'big gap', or whatever the hell it was."

"Huh. That's interesting."

_"Call me suspicious."_

"I concur."

Cody shrugs at an incredulous Alex.

"I don't know what to tell you. I have a bunch of knowledge now that I guess I'm not supposed to have."

_"I bet the artifact had something to do with it."_

"Why do you say that?"

_"Because it was communing with you Cody. It flared up right before you awoke, and it was also acting strangely right as you lost consciousness."_

"That…"

Cody looks at the floor in thought for a moment.

"…makes sense."

_"Not to mention you had a HUGE new mental load to process. Perhaps it was helping you."_

"Perhaps. I only remember bits and pieces of what the keys showed me, but it'll come back. Until then though, I want to help however I can."

_"Well, we've already established a few things so far. First: Sam is cryogenically frozen on board the Arcadia, which is a massive new ship that Colin's been quietly working on here in the middle of the ocean."_

"For colonizing and terraforming, right?"

_"Riiight…"_

"Creepy. As. Hell."

_"…anyway, the ship is a bit below the surface, and the submarine is on its way back up with a very badly beat up Dr. Kyne, who was apparently in charge down there until things went rather badly."_

"How so?"

_"Something about Sam exerting influence on his surrounding environment without being thawed. It's all very complicated, and Kyne was also half-delusional when he said it, so I'm not chalking it up as fact quite yet."_

"This day just gets better and better… so where does that leave me?"

_"I'm sending you down there. We've lost contact with White and Zack, as they've gone deeper into the facility surrounding the Arcadia. Find them and get everyone back in touch with me. I'm devoting to you a particular sentinel for this task."_

A bronze colored sentinel emerges from the shadows.

"No way. Is that-?"

_"The upgraded sentinel that warded over Colin during his coma? Indeed it is. I've nicknamed him the Sentinel Major."_

_"I will gladly assist Mr. Martin during his time in the facility."_

"Alright then… welcome aboard."

* * *

"I may have had nothing to do with the project, but it was happy to accept my credentials. I'm in."

After much wandering around and bumping into dead ends, Zack and White have finally arrived at what seems to be a control room of sorts that has power.

"Start going through everything. Leave nothing untouched; we need to know where both Sam AND Duncan are."

The two begin manipulating consoles and rummaging through filing cabinets.

"Well there is definitely some odd activity happening down here… the Arcadia's computers are working at almost max capacity."

"Obviously the rest of the ship is dead. What are they doing?"

"Oh, Colin's been busy I see, even in death."

Zack stops what he is doing and turns to White.

"Huh?"

"He's tasked the Arcadia's computer systems, which are roughly fifteen times more powerful than those of the Ishimura, to work through some massive mathematical problem."

"Which is…?"

"The hell if I know. Do I look like a computer scientist?"

"So you have no idea what he's got in the works?"

"No, but I guess it couldn't hurt to ask."

White types in a few things on a hologram in front of him. An image of three interlocked white trapezoids forming a triangle appears.

That's… the logo of the Citadel?"

"I ask what the machine is doing and THIS is what it responds with? Figures it had something to do with Project Trinity…"

"Project… Trinity?"

"Trinity was the codename that referred to the simultaneous development of the Citadel structure, artifact-powered reactor and Tunneling Entanglement Device."

"All three of those are gone. Why would it respond with the project's logo then?"

"It's chewing on something related to it. Could be anything. We'd need to get on board the Arcadia to get a better idea of what."

"And to do that, we need to find Duncan."

"Right. I'll check this console over here, you get that one."

Zack crosses to a console at the center of the room and begins messing with it. After a few moments, there is a sudden loud booming noise, and massive shutters slowly descend, revealing a vista that looks directly out towards the Arcadia.

"Well… that's one way to do it."

_"Control room operational. Facility systems are now rebooting."_

"I don't even know what I did, but it worked. Now to find Duncan."

_"Locating: assistant project lead Duncan Waldrop. Found."_

Zack gets an appalled look on his face.

"What? What is it?"

"Nothing good…"

* * *

_"Patient coming through!"_

A gurney being pushed by sentinels comes charging through the door to the Ishimura Clinic, bearing Dr. Kyne. Alex, Cody and the Sentinel Major follow it.

"How's he doing?"

_"Stabilized by the gel administered earlier. He'll pull through, but he won't be walking anytime soon. Fractured left leg, among other things."_

"Responsive?"

_"I'd wait a while."_

"Understood."

_"And here comes something to do in the meantime…"_

"Eh?"

_"We have an interesting situation to attend to. A lone F-35B, callsign Enigma 1, is entering our zone of control and requesting permission to land, citing low fuel."_

"Did you check the IFF?"

_"Yes, and that's what bothers me. It's registered to the Sky Carrier."_

Cody looks stunned.

"The Sky Carrier. You're sure?"

_"I confirmed it. Physical markings match too."_

"Who's flying it?"

_"And there's the second part of the mystery. That jet is registered to a lieutenant who died in the attack on the Citadel."_

"I'll take his call on the Bridge."

_"As you wish."_

Alex runs out, leaving Cody alone with Kyne.

"Good… he's gone…"

Cody is startled at Kyne's abrupt return to consciousness.

"Come again doctor?"

"You must do something for me down there. I only trust you."

Cody comes over to Kyne's bed and kneels down to his level.

"Anything."

Kyne pulls out an access card and hands it to Cody.

"This will give you access to anything anywhere down there. Use it on the Arcadia's tram system to reveal a hidden destination: the Server Deck."

"A whole deck with just computers? What for?"

"You will see soon enough… take it!"

Cody puts the card in his pocket and Kyne's expression softens.

"Good… now go, take a security RIG and the submarine, and tell no-one of your task!"

* * *

"Enigma 1, this is Captain Alexander Bergeron of the Ishimura. State your request."

Alex is sitting in his chair with a holographic video feed floating in front of him. On the other end of the line, a fuzzy view of the cockpit appears with a pilot in the center of the frame, wearing a helmet and oxygen mask.

_"Enigma 1 requesting permission to land and take on fuel sir."_

"Where is the rest of your squadron Enigma?"

_"Separated from them sir. They salvaged this F-35B from the Sky Carrier and it's been having all sorts of mechanical and electrical problems. I've lost GPS, satellite link and long-range radio. It's a miracle that I found you guys out here."_

"Understood Engima 1. Standby for vectors."

Alex sends away the hologram and turns to a slightly puzzled-looking CICIL.

"His story seems legitimate enough."

_"Perhaps. But it's a little odd that he's all the way out here, even if he got lost."_

"Well we don't always know what the Air Force is up to, so it's not safe to assume anything."

_"Fair enough. We'll keep it as short as possible though, if you don't mind."_

"Not at all."

_"Ok then. I'll reel him in."_

CICIL vanishes as Alex turns to look out the window at a rapidly-approaching dark speck in the sky.

* * *

_"Vectors received. Switch to hover-mode to begin automated landing sequence."_

"They bought it? Huh. Maybe CICIL really ISN'T all that smart."

After a quick tap of a few buttons, Chris relaxes his hands from the controls and looks out through his helmet's tinted visor at the Ishimura, still a few miles away.

_"Hover-mode engaged."_

"Alright… I got this far thanks to the relay. Now to make the home stretch…"

He looks down at the ocean, where several orange buoys marking CICIL's sonar pods can be seen on the surface.

"That must be where the project is. It's been hiding all this time in the last place anyone would ever look…"

A frown comes across his face.

"…and the best place for Sam to rot."

Chris reaches inside his coat pocket and produces a faded and folded-up photograph It is a picture of Colin, Chris and what looks like Sam, though the face has been scratched out.

"Maybe once I figure all this out… I'll just leave him there."

Chris continues to gaze at the photo for a moment until a sudden bump of turbulence draws his attention. A gravity tether beam has latched onto the fighter jet and it is beginning to slow down.

"Woah… she's even bigger than I remember…"

The F-35 enters the shadow of the ship and Chris looks around him in awe. The jet is moving well below flight speed now, being kept from falling by the tether beam. As the jet moves towards the hangar, it passes the submarine being levitated out by another gravity tether. Chris can just barely make out Cody in the pilot's seat.

"Oh great… the twins are here. Of course they're involved."

As the two craft go past each other, Cody glares out his window at the jet, and Chris, hidden behind his oxygen mask and tinted visor, gives a small salute.

"Move along… nothin' to see…"

The hangar doors slowly close as the jet comes to a gentle stop and Chris taps a button.

_"Canopy opening. Powering down."_

The whining of the jet engine fades away and the cockpit canopy opens. Chris ditches the oxygen mask, helmet and visor and stands up in the seat.

"And now for my next trick…"

He reaches down to one of the displays in the cockpit and presses a few buttons.

_"Vocal authorization required."_

"Christopher Thorne."

_"Accepted. Three minutes to self-destruct."_

Chris jumps down from the jet to the ground and the canopy closes.

"That'll be a nice surprise."

He casually strolls to the door to the Flight Lounge and pries open a nearby vent cover.

"Good thing I'm short."

Without a second thought, Chris jumps into the vent and replaces the cover before disappearing into the labyrinth of ducts. A few moments later, the door to the Flight Lounge opens and Alex walks out wearing a RIG suit.

_"Hm. All quiet here."_

"We'll see."

He walks up to the jet, which is still giving off waves of heat.

"Hello? Anyone in there?"

There is no response.

_"Well that's bizarre. Can you see anyone in there?"_

"I don't think so… but it's a bit dark in here."

Alex jumps up onto the jet and taps on the canopy.

"Hellooo?"

He pops it open and looks inside.

"It's empty?"

Alex spots the countdown on the flight computer with five seconds left.

"A timer?"

_"ALEX, MOVE!"_

The jet suddenly explodes in a massive fireball, sending Alex careening across the hangar and scattering flaming debris everywhere. He slams into the far wall and slumps to the ground, unconscious.

* * *

Contact Lost and Cody Awakens:

_"Eden Prime"_- Mass Effect Soundtrack by Sam Hulick and Jack Wall

* * *

The Facility Control Room:

_"9999999"_ – Portal 2: Songs to Test By (Volume 1)

* * *

Arrival of Chris:

_"Treason of Isengard"_ – Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Soundtrack by Howard Shore


End file.
